The 57 Bus is a book written by Dashka Slater about Sasha, a teenager whose life changed after getting set on fire by another teenager while sitting on the 57 Bus. The main characters of this book are Sasha and Richard, both teenagers. Even though the two live in the same city, they are from radically different worlds. Different living environments, schools, friends, and family. The story is mainly split into 4 parts: Sasha’s part, Richard’s part, the fire, and justice(what happened after.) While reading the book, I took notes on some of the themes, central ideas, and conflicts that occurred in the book.

Below are some of the notebook pages I recorded during the expanse of reading the book.

On this page, I recorded some of the themes, central ideas, and social issues that are seen in the book with some more detailed examples from the book. Most of the book talks about identity and discrimination but there are some other topics including for example racism, classism, and others. When finding some of the central ideas, I found that some of the ideas I found connect with others while also some are causes and effects to the theme and some social issues.

While just starting to read the book, I found an important central idea: Not many people knew about different genders and identities. I found some quotes from the book that support this idea and also explain how these quotes connect with the central idea. I found it important and interesting how the author wrote out Sasha’s identities and their personalities. It helped me with understanding the story better by reading the book with their perspective.

While reading to the middle of the book, I found another central idea which is all teenagers should be tried as juveniles no matter the crime they commit. Our groups decided to use this central idea as the main topic to write about in our “should statement.” The evidence provided in black is paraphrased stories that support the idea from the book. The ones that are written in blue are direct quotes from the story that supports the story.

Thank you for your time and hope you enjoy reading this.