The 57 Bus By Dashka Slater

The book, The 57 bus by Dashka Slater is about two high school students who had a very important event happened in their lives. Sasha is an agender person which means they identify as neither a male nor a female. Richard is a young African American male who had some trouble in his school life. Sasha and Richard's lives both changed after an incident involving a bus, a skirt, and a lighter. Sasha is an important person to many LGBTQ+ people and what Richard, has done, will probably show as a reason to support them more. Both Sasha and Richard's lives have both shown concepts Martin Luther King spoke of in his “What’s Your Life's Blueprint?” speech. Sasha and Richard have shown dignity and self-worth, a commitment to excellence, and have

Sasha has overcome many things including a traumatic accident. Sasha's skirt got lit on fire on a bus giving her 3rd degree burns all over her legs. Sasha also showed it when an older woman was questioning them for wearing a skirt “ one day at a bus stop an older woman approached Sasha and said why are you wearing a skirt ? she demanded you’re not a girl! I'm wearing a skirt because I like wearing skirts. Sasha replied” (Slater, 45) here Sasha was showing that they had self-worth and they didn’t care what people thought. Even after the incident where she got set on fire for wearing a skirt they still continued to wear a skirt. Richard has shown dignity and self-worth by owning up to his mistake when he set Sasha's skirt on fire. Richard wrote letters to Sasha because he felt bad about what he had done and that shows dignity and self-worth “ I apologize for my actions, for the pain I brought you and your family. I was wrong for what I did. I was wrong. I had no reason to do that to you…”(180) he is showing that he knows what he did was wrong and he's taking the responsibility for it. These reasons show how Sasha and Richard both have dignity and self-worth in their

After Sasha could leave the hospital they went out and lived her life even though before they could do that they had to go through many surgeries and still had to have their legs bandaged up. Sasha graduated high school and even got accepted into MIT even though a psychologist who first diagnosed Sasha with Asperger's syndrome said they probably wouldn't get far in life. “The psychologist said that he’d seen many children with autism over the years, and none of them had gotten married”(251) but despite all that Sasha had many achievements in life and did well enough in school to get accepted into MIT. Richard was determined to try and make things right with Sasha and their family “I just wanted to say that I'm still very sorry and I hope you're getting better. I had a nightmare last night and woke up sweating and apologizing. I really hope you get back to the way you were”(184) this shows that Richard is trying to be a better person in life even though all that's happened to him and what he has done. That is how Sasha and Richard both show a commitment to