Two teenagers on the 57 bus, on the way home back from school: one being an agender teen wearing a skirt, Sasha; the other, a young African American male with a lighter, Richard. It was this specific afternoon; this moment, the mere eight minutes where both of these teenagers’ lives overlapped, that Richard left Sasha with severe burns, and for this single reckless act, Richard was charged with hate crimes as well as life imprisonment. This case of Richard and Sasha gained international attention, forcing both teenagers into the spotlight of citizens and media alike. “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater chronicles the events that led up to the moment of the crime, starting with the accounts of each teenagers’ pasts and how the various influences in their lives effectively shaped them to be who they were up until the time of the crime, whilst showing both sides of the story, coin, and crime after the act had been committed. The novel itself not only makes for a riveting, compassionate, and expertly written read; it also includes themes, social issues and central ideas of racism, justice, class, gender, and identity. Not only that, “The 57 Bus” shows despite majority of the views by media and people on the case of Richard and Sasha, this crime isn’t a simple matter of injustice and justice, black and white, perpetrator and victim – it is far more than a one-sided and malicious act against a poor, unsuspecting recipient. Through “The 57 Bus,” you may find that the truth of this crime is more complicated and heartbreaking than previously thought.

To start with, one thing that Dashka Slater did extremely well with when writing “The 57 Bus” was getting sources and information from individuals affiliated with Sasha and Richard as well as the teenagers themselves to write the most accurate real-life account of the crime and the lives both Sasha and Richard led before it. This specific notebook page is a mind-map about Sasha and some quotes about their background.

Here, in this notebook page, I dedicated the first half to selected quotes I thought were relevant to understanding Sasha as well as how they could potentially lead to some of the themes this book presents. In the second half of the page, you can see how I then created some big ideas based off of my previously selected quotes and wrote a few supporting details under each big idea.

 

In my next notebook page, I applied the lesson of exploring multiple big ideas to my own book:

With this notebook page, I thought to combine the multiple big ideas that reoccured throughout Sasha’s part of the book into one solidified idea with several statements and quotes/supporting details as seen above. I made sure to also include one other perspective aside from Sasha to really add depth into this idea of “identity.”

 

Moving on from Sasha to Richard, this next notebook page is in the same format as the notebook page about Sasha except this one is about Richard:

Again, I followed the exact same format with this notebook page as I did with my page about Sasha. With Richard, I noticed the difference between him and Sasha as even though they were raised in Oakland, California, the both of them were raised in vastly different environments, which impact their character. I kept note of the underlying classism as well as details about the environment that Richard grew up in and how it may have led to him committing the crime as I continued reading on.

 

This next page isn’t from my notebook page; it’s a central idea assessment that we did in class, but I felt that it has many connections, quotes, and a well supported theme statement that’s more developed and refined. In addition to a summary of all the previous notebook pages, it also has more details to enhance your understanding of the book.

Central Idea Assessment – The 57 Bus

In this page, you’ll see that it emphasizes a lot about identity, the various aspects that influence your character, how social issues affect it, etc. It’s really just a condensed version of all my notes where it has a lot quotes from both Sasha and Richard, the connections between all the details, how these details tie back to my theme, and how it shows my thinking all throughout the book.

 

This next notebook page, I went into more depth with Richard’s arrest and his part of the book, it was here that I developed this theme of juvenile offenders, crime, justice, and punishment.

With this format, I wrote my theme statement: juvenile offenders should be given a reformative justice and not punishment as adult offenders would, at the very top and listed quotes from the book itself that I thought best supported it. However, this was just quotes from the book itself, and if I really wanted to have an in-depth understanding of Richard’s situation, and in general what juvenile offenders have to deal with in court, at their centers, etc. I would need more information.

 

It was then that we had this lesson, “Reread + Research.” Here, I sort of scratched the surface of doing outside research of specific excerpts to better my understanding of the book, and what better than Richard himself. The details the book gave were fascinating, however, I needed information on what juveniles offenders dealt with overall, not just Richard himself.

There is also a section of this page dedicated to the lesson “Cause + Effect,” and whilst reading this book, I could definitely identify some ‘domino’ type situations where one thing causes another to happen. In that section of the notebook page, you can see again, I focused on Richard and how his environment as well as the people he was hanging out with led to his actions and behavior.

 

In this page, I really focused on researching about the unfair ‘justice’ that are enforced on juveniles and what they have to go through in their centers.

This page consists of a lot of information from outside sites, this information supports the theme that I developed from juvenile offenders shouldn’t be treated like adult offenders to juvenile centers and charges of imprisonment for adolescents shouldn’t exist at all. For example, this site is about how a group of parents campaigned against juvenile centers because of the inhumane environment and conditions their children had to live through. There are also details from this site that have direct accounts about what inmates had to go through living at these prison centers, what punishments they had to endure, etc. To summarize, this page just contains outside research about juvenile centers in California and how they supported and connected with my theme statement.

Other sites include: Review of management at Chaderjian and the shut down of California’s youth prisons.

 

Overall, “The 57 Bus” was a very compelling and well-written read that brought light to the hardships teenagers deal with facing  everyday issues, people around them, and society itself. More so that it has themes of racism, justice, class, gender, and identity. If you like non-fiction, or simply want a fascinating case to read about that’s articulate in storytelling, “The 57 Bus” is perfect for you. Through this book, you will learn how much you, the people around you, and the world can be impacted within the time it takes for the flick of a lighter.