subtitle: A Simple Story of Overcoming Challenges and Achieving Significance
by Tom Pace with Walter Jenkins
paperback 175 pages
Published: 2007
Genre: motivational
This was donated to a middle school I worked at over fifteen years ago. It sat in a pile at my house and so I decided to read it (finally). It isn't really middle school level . . . though I thought about which readers might benefit from it.
The basic premise is that a dumb entitled teen gets in trouble with the law and ends up in prison on a felony conviction. A motivational mentor offers a weekly class and the teen eventually goes just to get out of his cell. Over the weeks and months, his life is transformed.
Overall, this is a fairly cheesy simplistic book but it is definitely a positive and encouraging one. Two big themes from this mentor are to read and to run. It also touches on the reality of how hard life can be for ex-cons who are trying to turn their lives around after leaving prison. And of course, there is a huge emphasis on finding a mentor and / or being a mentor.
One thing I liked were the very faint phrases on the bottom of every page. "Dream big." "Share hope." "Be loyal." "Concentrate." I almost got out my highlighter to make them more prominent, but I knew I wasn't planning to keep this book. I'm trying to decide if I will drop it off at a Little Free Library, a jail, or a high school.
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