This is the story of inner-city kids who come from poverty, dysfunctional homes, and drug-riddled neighborhoods; of an underfunded high school and its devoted principal who represent their last slim connection to mainstream society; and of a young reporter who crossed over into this other America to participate in the wrenching complexities of their lives.Cristina Rathbone spent a year at New York City's West Side High School. Hanging out with the kids in classrooms and in the halls, on street corners and in gang meetings, she gets to know the hidden narratives of their lives and comes to admire their courage and dazzling cool. There is Rasheem, for example, a gifted artist whose extravagant wardrobe is a cover for his homelessness and poverty; Roland, whose menagerie of reptiles has earned him a reputation as the "Dr. Doolittle of the South Bronx"; and Sandra, a bright Latina who finds an outlet for her ambition only by joining one of the city's largest youth gangs. And then there is Manny Martinez, a charming, soft-spoken drug dealer who has always wanted to be a refrigerator repairman, but who eventually ends up in prison.Moving beyond the role of a journalist to that of a potential caregiver, Rathbone must soon confront not only West Side's limitations but her own. Read Less