Kid Quixotes: A Group of Students, Their Teacher, and the One-Room School Where Everything Is Possible - Hardcover

Haff, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062934066 ISBN 13: 9780062934062

Publisher: HarperOne, 2020

Synopsis

“In my years of experience as
a writer and as a college professor, I have never seen anything like this: the
love for language, the passion for discussion, clarity of mind, and humility of
heart. Stephen Haff invents impossible projects and makes them possible.”

—Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive

The unlikely, inspiring true story of a one-room school where children of undocumented immigrants and their teacher discover their voices and speak truth to power.

Still Waters
in a Storm is an after-school program held in a small room in Bushwick,
Brooklyn; it is a place for kids to practice reading and writing in English,
Spanish, and Latin. For the students, many living in constant fear of
deportation, Still Waters is a refuge. For Stephen Haff, a former public-school
teacher, it is the sanctuary he built following a breakdown caused by bipolar
depression. At Still Waters, all agreed that there would only be one rule: “Everyone
listens to everyone.” And this has unlocked spectacular potential.

 Since 2016, the students have been collectively
translating Don Quixote into English, taking the Spanish tale—a story about a dreamer who
never gives up—and adapting it into a bilingual musical. Six-year old Sarah tells
of her mother’s journey across the desert from Mexico riding on the back of a
tiger. Alex, a very private teenager, sings her coming out song to standing
ovations. As the kids perform their work across NYC, they learn that they
belong in this country—their voices amplifying to deliver a message of
diversity, love, hope, and resilience essential to us all.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Haff is the founder of Still Waters in a Storm, a one-room school serving Spanish-speaking immigrant children in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Previously, he taught English at a public school in Bushwick for nearly a decade. He earned his MFA in Theater Studies at Yale, and has made a living directing plays and writing essays for the Village Voice and other publications. Stephen lives in Queens with his wife, children’s book author Tina Schneider, and their three children.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062934066
• ISBN 13: 9780062934062
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304