The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater is about a true story of two teenagers with different backgrounds with different race and how one thoughtless action changed their lives. The story is told about a white teenager Sasha who identifies herself as agender, and black teenager Richard . The story tells about the incident that happened in Oakland, California, 57 bus in November, 2013.  Richard sets Sasha on fire because peer pressure from his friends. Sasha is injured with serious burn and Richard is in court for his crime. The book shows the issue of discrimination and social justice and forgiveness for central idea

 

The first central idea i discovered in the book was forgiveness is needed for rehabilitation and change.

As I read further there was examples of evidence of Richard’s growth and rehabilitation. While analyzing descriptive parts, In one of the passage, it described about the guilt and feeling of regret Richard felt and how he wanted Sasha to forgive him. Also, after the speech from Sasha’s family that says to forgive him, the word such as ‘exceptionally well..’ describes the rehabilitation and attitude to change  from Richard.

In the research lesson we had to research about the parts that were still unsure. i researched about restorative justice. Even though the family did not use restorative justice, both of the families had similar beliefs as restorative justice, restorative justices focuses on repair and root causes of crime instead of punishment. Sasha’s family did not want heavy punishments to Richard instead they wanted rehabilitation instead of punishment. which also goes with restorative justice. I could see Restorative elements had helped Richard to recover from the past actions

Later in lesson 7 we had to make connection in the book. There was parts that connected to the idea of forgiveness. The central idea was forgiveness is needed for rehabilitation and change. the connected quotes showed the central idea of forgiveness is needed for rehabilitation. One way that Sasha’s famiy showed forgiveness is  their empathy ,despite the harm that Richard gave to Sasha. And Sasha’s family wanted Richard to gain more empathy instead of gaining more hate in the future. This also helped Richard for his rehabilitation for 5 years and ending his journey that started on November 2013 and start his new journey.