Life in Prison

Written by Stanley Tookie Williams

Narrated by Ty Jones

"The true stories I've written in this book are my living nightmares. My greatest hope is that the lessons the stories offer will help you make better choices than I did." Stanley "Tookie" Williams, cofounder of the notorious Crips gang, is a death-row inmate. But in his two decades of incarceration, Williams has also become a respected author and activist whose dedication to ending gang warfare in the lives of inner-city children has earned him a 2001 Nobel Peace Prize nomination. In this award-winning bookwhich has drawn praise from educators, government leaders, and families alikeWilliams describes the brutal reality of being an inmate. He debunks myths of prisons as "gladiator schools" with blunt, riveting stories of overwhelming homesickness, the terror of solitary confinement, and the humiliation of strip-searches. Williams' words are a frank challenge to adolescent readers to educate themselves, make intelligent decisions, and above all, not to follow in his footsteps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781470357504

Stanley Tookie Williams

Stanley Tookie Williams, activist and author, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times and the Nobel Prize in literature four times. He is the only man in history to be nominated while imprisoned. He was executed in 2005.

Reviews for Life in Prison

[Leonna Johnson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very good book real life lesson prison is for no man

[hhs1students · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reviewed by: Marisha (Class of 2013)“Spending day after day in prison can cause strange things to happen to a person’s sanity. It’s easy to lose touch with reality.” This means that people who go into prison are likely to become stir-crazy because they get the fear of being locked in close spaces for a long period of time. They get a strange fear! People have to lose their freedom when entering a prison. There are a lot of things that people lose just for getting arrested and being taken to prison. For example, people lose their rights, they could lose their virginity if they’re a virgin, and most of all people lose their minds. Most people don’t know how to handle being in prison for a while. But some people don’t go crazy and they just get claustrophobic and lost self control. After several years of being in prison, Stanley felt claustrophobic. And at times he thought that he was about to go crazy. His feelings of claustrophobia would last for about a minute or two at a time.I think that the book is an excellent book to read. “TOOKIE” tells his story about being in prison and tries to encourage little kids to not go to prison and that prison isn’t the place to be in life. That is unless you’re a worker at the prison, but still prison isn’t the place to be nor to work at because if a fight breaks out, one of the guards can get hurt and that could be you if you’re a guard at the prison.This book tells anyone a lot about being inside of a jail felicity. It also tells you about how being in prison isn’t fun and also how they have a lot of rules to follow and how they are expected to do all the rules and not to break any of their violation rules. This book is not a joke and it could change a lot of lives.In conclusion, I think that this book tells a person how they wouldn’t want to be in prison and the tricks of being in prison if a person does go. This book is a true book and I really think that this book could make a lot of people change their minds about going to prison. It’s true about a man named STANLEY “TOOKIE” WILLIAMS and about how "Life in Prison" is not a place anyone should be or wants to be.

[middlemedia2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very good book from Tookie Williams. He describes how the gangs were started and how he was punished for it. Not that I feel sorry for him being executed but it was interesting to see his side of the story. I am glad that he did feel remorse for what he did. I have suggested this book to several of the 7-8 graders I worked with.

[realbigcat · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I picked this book up at a yard sale mostly because it was real cheap and I heard of Stanley Williams and the media surrounding him on death row. It's a real short book that really gets at what it's like to be in prison and on death row. This book should be a must read for teens and preteens. It could be a lot more graphic but Williams tones it down just enough so that it gets the point across. I have no sympathy for Williams and what he did but at least he's trying to scare kids off the path that he pursued.