Your mom comes home, the grill of her newly purchased Thunderbird crushed. She's teary-eyed because she knows that when her husband sees it, he will fume and throw some fists. So what's a good son to do?

"I told her I would take care of it," said Francisco, in an essay he calls The G-Ride. He had recalled seeing a few cars the same color as hers in the Culver City area. ". . . I left and picked up the homies Skinnie and Tripper so they could help me. Half an hour later we returned with a brand-new car. We drove it to an alley and stripped it.

"Then we put my mom's car together and it looked like new. So when my dad got home he didn't even notice, so we lived happily ever after."

Happily, except that Francisco writes this as he sits in juvie jail.

Francisco is one of the students from Mark Salzman's creative writing program, called "Inside Out Writers." The class comprises high-risk offenders from a juvenile correction facility in California and most are there for committing murder. Sister Janet Harris and author Karen Hunt developed the writing class as a way to encourage young criminals to think for themselves and to write those thoughts down.

Duane Norijuki, a friend of Salzman's and a leader of one of the writing classes, encouraged Salzman to lead his own writing class there.

Initially, Salzman was reluctant to volunteer. But in the end, he did, and stayed four years. Then he decided to share his experiences in a highly readable and fascinating work called True Notebooks.

He tells the story chronologically, with dialogue re-created from memory. Interspersed throughout are the boys' personal writing projects, presented in their own rough language, curses and all.

The often well-written entries are thought-provoking, entertaining, often sad and sometimes unintentionally funny. They contain an unexpected number of references to God and show deep emotion for their moms. The boys admit to crying in solitude, yet no one talks about it publicly. They also express confusion and fear.

It's hard to imagine feeling sympathy for someone who has committed murder or armed robbery. Yet Salzman's book conveys a fragile part of these juvenile offenders that shows they indeed are just boys who have made terrible, life-changing decisions. Their deeply personal writing conveys their convoluted reasoning, as well as difficult childhoods with absent or abusive fathers.

Salzman, who had small expectations as their writing coach, found himself drawn to the boys over time because of their vulnerability and need for reassurance. For the most part, the boys took the writing assignments seriously and took pride in what they wrote.

While the writing served as an outlet, it in no way earned them "Get Out of Jail Free" cards. The class proved to be a revolving door as, week after week, one or another of the boys would move on to adult prison, county jail or the Box (solitary confinement). Even when the boys showed exemplary behavior, the convictions came down harshly. In this regard, the book reveals the tragedy of the current court system for juveniles, as well as the lack of available programs to turn children away from gangs and crime before they throw their lives away.

Don't get me wrong. True Notebooks is no preachy tome. It's simply a story about a jail, some boys and the power of writing. The reader is left to ponder what it all means.

Verna Noel Jones is a freelance writer living in Aurora.