I had been looking forward to reading this for some time. It's about Whitney High School which is located in Cerritos, California. The book was written in 2001 as the September 11th attacks happened and it follows the senior class for the school year. I was working in neighboring Norwalk during those years and so I am really proud of all the students from the area of both Cerritos and Norwalk. Very proficient writing from a Pulitzer Prize winner. That's the good part.
The bad part is that the style was off putting and I grew to dislike the writer as the book wore on. As a rule, Humes sets up opposites (a good guy and a bad guy) who battle it out every chapter. Some people favorably presented early on come out later stripped of their shining armour. It became tedious as a serious book, since this style is more suited to fiction. Whitney had been and continues to be one of the three top scoring schools for testing in the state. They were the reigning champions at the writing of the book. Humes notes, late in the book, that he was there as a volunteer writing tutor although he gives the impression that he is journalist doing a independant study of the school. Not genuine. I finished the book because I value reading about good students everywhere, more than for the drama of a year completed. Whitney has an abundance of them but they don't have a monopoly in the area by any means. I know the locale well, so it was fun to read of the tutor schools nearby, the pizza places for all-nighters, and the perfoming acts center and library. In many ways an excellent book, just not positive enough about the kids who are great on their own without having been 'noticed' by Humes. I guess you could say I was awakened from my dogmatic slumber of presuming objective writing from Mr. Humes. He has a certain way to turn people off, such as when he assumes it to be true that UC Irvine is so asian student dominated that some considered it 13th grade of Whitney High. NOT true at all. This book is a relic as it covers the intial stages of No Child Left Behind, the advent of the first lousy computer programs which taught nothing to great fanfare, and belittling the first MACs in favor Microsoft. Humes is at his best when he documents the kids themselves, and at his worst when he tries to look to the future. Although he tries to present a 'balanced' (both upsides and downsides) appraisal of Whitney HS, the place comes off like a dream come true once you do the math and factor out Mr. Humes. ( )