About This Book:
Do you remember what it felt like to stand on the edge of your youth, the shadow of adulthood looming over you? Can you imagine what that would feel like in this current historical moment?
The book you hold in your hand is the result of a partnership between 826LA, Paramount Pictures, and students in the Cinematic Arts & Creative Technologies Magnet at Helen Bernstein High School. Through the Kindergarten to Cap & Gown program, employees from Paramount Pictures have provided more than 10,000 hours of mentoring to 500 students at Helen Bernstein High School, Le Conte Junior High School, and Santa Monica Boulevard Community Charter School and STEM Academy during the last 10 years.
In this anthology, you will find powerful stories and poems responding to the theme of “fight, flight, or freeze.” The student authors were asked to think of a moment when their character—sometimes a stand-in for themselves—is suddenly faced with a stressful or dangerous situation and asked to imagine how they would respond and what the aftereffects of their choice would be.
This anthology is a meditation on how our reactions reveal something deeper about who we are. But ultimately, these stories remind us that we are more than our reactions. That we do not need to be only the deer. We can also be the driver. Our lives are as much about the choices we make as they are about the things that happen to us. These stories ask: With headlights on, what will you make of your life? A wreck, or something more?
