There aren't too many teachers who are written about in the "New Yorker," "People," "Entertainment Weekly," "Elle," and excerpted in "Reader's Digest." But Esme Raji Codell is no ordinary teacher. An irrepressible spirit, she wears costumes in the classroom, dances with the kids during math lessons, roller-skates down the hallways, and puts on rousing performances with at-risk students in the library.

In "Educating Esme," the uncensored diary of her first year teaching in a Chicago public school, she opens a window into the closed world of a real-life classroom. Refusing to let anything get in the way of delivering the education her fifth-graders deserve, this dedicated teacher finds herself battling bureaucrats, gang members, inflexible administrators, angry children, and her own insecurities, while at the same time changing her students' lives forever.

Now in paperback, here is the book" People" called "hilarious," "Booklist" called "screamingly funny," "Greensboro News & Record" called "brilliantly conceived," and the "Boston Phoenix" noted "should be read by anyone who's interested in the future of public education."