Esme Raji Codell

Codell begins her journal as a twenty-four-year-old rookie teacher at a new elementary school. She is young, idealistic, and very confident in her teaching methodology. She is also fiercely determined to "get her way" and fight through the bureaucracy at the school. As a progressive-minded teacher, she finds her conservative principal, Mr. Turner, intolerable, and she comes to resent his presence and meddling.

Codell initially has mixed success in her fight with the bureaucracy. An ambitious "Fairy Tale Festival" event she proposes is flatly rejected by the powers that be. But in her classroom, and despite Mr. Turner's hand wringing, Codell achieves an uncommon connection with her students. She exhibits "tough love" with her students, stern but caring. The students come to appreciate her eccentricities (she insists on being called "Madame Esme," and she becomes known for the unusual costumes she wears to school) and her...