
True Notebooks
A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $16.16
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Paul Boehmer
-
By:
-
Mark Salzman
About this listen
When Mark Salzman is invited to visit a writing class at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles’s most violent teenage offenders, he scrambles for a polite reason to decline. He goes - expecting the worst - and is so astonished by what he finds that he becomes a teacher there himself. True Notebooks is an account of Salzman’s first years teaching at Central. Through it, we come to know his students as he did: in their own words.
At times impossible and at times irresistible, they write with devastating clarity about their pasts, their fears, their confusions, their regrets, and their hopes. They write about what led them to crime and to gangs, about love for their mothers and anger toward their (mostly absent) fathers, about guilt for the pain they have caused, and about what it is like to be facing life in prison at the age of seventeen. Most of all, they write about trying to find some reason to believe in themselves - and others - in spite of all that has gone wrong.
Surprising, charming, upsetting, enlightening, and ultimately hopeful - driven by the insight and humor of Salzman’s voice and by the intelligence, candor, and strength of his students, whose writing appears throughout the book - True Notebooks is itself a reward of the self-expression Mark Salzman teaches: a revelatory meditation on the process, power, and meaning of writing.
©2003 Mark Salzman (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Last Chance in Texas
- The Redemption of Criminal Youth
- By: John Hubner
- Narrated by: Chip Dolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The state notoriously the most tough on crime also has the most humane treatment program for violent young offenders. Located in Giddings, Texas, the Capital Offenders Group is a grueling exercise in therapy and self-awareness that, if successfully completed, can result in a parole instead of a long sentence in one of Texas' adult prisons.
-
-
Listen to this book.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-27-23
By: John Hubner
-
The Glass Castle
- A Memoir
- By: Jeannette Walls
- Narrated by: Jeannette Walls
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family; she called herself an "excitement addict."
-
-
What's normal?
- By Kmrsy on 11-30-13
By: Jeannette Walls
-
No Matter How Loud I Shout
- A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
- By: Edward Humes
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Granted unprecedented access to the Los Angeles Juvenile Court, including the judges, the probation officers, and the children themselves, Edward Humes creates an unforgettable portrait of a chaotic system that is neither saving our children in danger nor protecting us from adolescent violence. Yet he shows us there is also hope in the handful of courageous individuals working tirelessly to triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds.
-
-
Amazing research, sad truths
- By Terry on 06-06-23
By: Edward Humes
-
Riot Baby
- By: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Narrated by: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative.
-
-
I...wasn’t...ready
- By Amazon Customer1 on 04-28-20
By: Tochi Onyebuchi
-
My Bloody Life
- The Making of a Latin King
- By: Reymundo Sanchez
- Narrated by: Rudy Sanda
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Looking for an escape from childhood abuse, Reymundo Sanchez turned away from school and baseball to drugs, alcohol, and then sex and was left to fend for himself before age 14. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became his refuge and his world, but its violence cost him friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly his life. This is a raw and powerful odyssey through the ranks of the new Mafia.
-
-
Good book, but the reader wasn’t a good fit
- By TheAutumnWind on 02-13-19
By: Reymundo Sanchez
-
The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Colson Whitehead
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
-
-
Who spoke for the black boys?
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Colson Whitehead
-
Last Chance in Texas
- The Redemption of Criminal Youth
- By: John Hubner
- Narrated by: Chip Dolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The state notoriously the most tough on crime also has the most humane treatment program for violent young offenders. Located in Giddings, Texas, the Capital Offenders Group is a grueling exercise in therapy and self-awareness that, if successfully completed, can result in a parole instead of a long sentence in one of Texas' adult prisons.
-
-
Listen to this book.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-27-23
By: John Hubner
-
The Glass Castle
- A Memoir
- By: Jeannette Walls
- Narrated by: Jeannette Walls
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family; she called herself an "excitement addict."
-
-
What's normal?
- By Kmrsy on 11-30-13
By: Jeannette Walls
-
No Matter How Loud I Shout
- A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
- By: Edward Humes
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Granted unprecedented access to the Los Angeles Juvenile Court, including the judges, the probation officers, and the children themselves, Edward Humes creates an unforgettable portrait of a chaotic system that is neither saving our children in danger nor protecting us from adolescent violence. Yet he shows us there is also hope in the handful of courageous individuals working tirelessly to triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds.
-
-
Amazing research, sad truths
- By Terry on 06-06-23
By: Edward Humes
-
Riot Baby
- By: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Narrated by: Tochi Onyebuchi
- Length: 3 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative.
-
-
I...wasn’t...ready
- By Amazon Customer1 on 04-28-20
By: Tochi Onyebuchi
-
My Bloody Life
- The Making of a Latin King
- By: Reymundo Sanchez
- Narrated by: Rudy Sanda
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Looking for an escape from childhood abuse, Reymundo Sanchez turned away from school and baseball to drugs, alcohol, and then sex and was left to fend for himself before age 14. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became his refuge and his world, but its violence cost him friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly his life. This is a raw and powerful odyssey through the ranks of the new Mafia.
-
-
Good book, but the reader wasn’t a good fit
- By TheAutumnWind on 02-13-19
By: Reymundo Sanchez
-
The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Colson Whitehead
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
-
-
Who spoke for the black boys?
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Colson Whitehead
-
Concrete Rose
- By: Angie Thomas
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If there's one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it's that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad's in prison. Life's not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav's got everything under control. Until, that is, Maverick finds out he's a father. But it's not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child.
-
-
Five Starr!
- By Dayna on 01-18-21
By: Angie Thomas
-
To Kill a Mockingbird
- By: Harper Lee
- Narrated by: Sissy Spacek
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep south - and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred, available now for the first time as a digital audiobook. One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the country.
-
-
A gift to be treasured
- By David Shear on 07-09-14
By: Harper Lee
-
Lord of the Flies
- By: William Golding
- Narrated by: William Golding
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marooned on a tropical island, alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, and devoid of adult supervision or rules, a group of British boys begins to forge a society with its own unique rules and rituals.
-
-
Great story - bad narration
- By A Mom on 03-05-08
By: William Golding
-
All American Boys
- By: Jason Reynolds, Brendan Kiely
- Narrated by: Guy Lockard, Keith Nobbs
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bag of chips. That's all 16-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered.
-
-
Required Reading
- By J. E. Abel on 09-18-16
By: Jason Reynolds, and others
-
The Outsiders
- By: S. E. Hinton
- Narrated by: Jim Fyfe
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ponyboy can count on his brothers. And on his friends. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up "greasers" like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect, until the night someone takes things too far.
-
-
The Outsiders
- By Carol on 01-25-06
By: S. E. Hinton
-
Flowers for Algernon
- By: Daniel Keyes
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlie Gordon knows that he isn't very bright. At 32, he mops floors in a bakery and earns just enough to get by. Three evenings a week, he studies at a center for mentally challenged adults. But all of this is about to change for Charlie. As part of a daring experiment, doctors are going to perform surgery on Charlie's brain. They hope the operation and special medication will increase his intelligence, just as it has for the laboratory mouse, Algernon.
-
-
Walk with a Swagger
- By Tim on 05-30-14
By: Daniel Keyes
-
Speak
- 20th Anniversary Edition
- By: Laurie Halse Anderson
- Narrated by: Mandy Siegfried, Ashley C. Ford, Jason Reynolds, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she's an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, a major infraction in high-school society, so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute.
-
-
Recommend with Slight Reservations
- By FanB14 on 05-21-12
-
Thirteen Reasons Why
- By: Jay Asher
- Narrated by: Debra Wiseman, Joel Johnstone
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush, who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice explains that there are 13 reasons she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.
-
-
An Ideal Audio Book
- By Diana on 01-10-11
By: Jay Asher
-
Beyond Belief
- My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape
- By: Jenna Miscavige Hill
- Narrated by: Sandy Rustin
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige, was raised as a Scientologist but left the controversial religion in 2005. In Beyond Belief, she shares her true story of life inside the upper ranks of the sect, details her experiences as a member Sea Org - the church's highest ministry - speaks of her "disconnection" from family outside of the organization, and tells the story of her ultimate escape.
-
-
The Despicable Truth Behind Scientology
- By Tim on 02-07-13
-
The Other Wes Moore
- One Name, Two Fates
- By: Wes Moore, Tavis Smiley - afterword
- Narrated by: Wes Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore.
-
-
Insightful lesson in self-determination
- By Aneesah on 02-04-13
By: Wes Moore, and others
-
Among the Hidden
- By: Margaret Peterson Haddix
- Narrated by: Steven Boyer
- Length: 3 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Luke Garner has spent his entire life - all 12 years - in hiding. The government has outlawed families with more than two children. As the Garners' third child, Luke's very life is in danger. When Luke meets Jen, another "shadow child," he begins to question the government's policies.
-
-
Best book
- By Jennifer Corbitt Price on 06-23-15
-
The Lacuna
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in the United States, but reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers and, one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed muralist Diego Rivera. When he goes to work for Rivera, his wife, exotic artist Kahlo, and exiled leader Lev Trotsky, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.
-
-
Great Writers need Great Narrators
- By Gypsy Wife on 12-04-09
Critic reviews
Alex Award Winner, 2004
“True Notebooks succeeds in adding something fresh, galvanizing and articulate to the overcrowded realm of classroom stories. A candid, involving teacher’s diary...Eloquent...Cogent, thoughtful and honest.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times, September 15, 2003)
“Wonderful...Even the manipulative kids Salzman introduces are stunningly human...Examines a broken system with grace, wit, and gripping storytelling.” (John Green, Booklist, starred and boxed review, August 2003)
“[Salzman’s] account’s power comes from keeping its focus squarely on these boys, their writing and their coming-to-terms with the mess their lives had become.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review, June 16, 2003)
Amazing book & perfect for listening to
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Eye-opening
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unforgettable Journey
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A wonderful journey through the lives of teens and the perils of a society that has given up on them.
Wonderful book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Would you listen to True Notebooks again? Why?
May be. I liked the book which I listened to many years ago.What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
I still recall one incident from the book where a juvenile criminal says the best thing that happened to him was going to McDonald's or Wendy's with his dad for ice cream once.What about Paul Boehmer’s performance did you like?
good voiceAny additional comments?
It helps you to become a better person.Help can take many forms
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Funny, witty and honest! Loved the book!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Profound humanity and incredible writing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Best Book Read This Year
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Inspiring to another volunteer
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Salzman treats the kids with dignity but is neither an apologist nor a judge for any of them.
Beware. You'll be invested in these kids before you know it.
An education in reality
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.