About the Author

Grace Llewellyn is a former middle school teacher, the founder and director of Not Back to School Camp, and a global thought leader in the field of Self-Directed Education. Her other books are Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go to School Tell Their Own Stories, Freedom Challenge: African American Homeschoolers, and Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School. She lives with her son in Eugene, Oregon.

Reviews

"At MIT, grad students pass The Teenage Liberation Handbook around in secret to set our minds free from institutional thinking. Without it, I would not be the founder of a successful electronics company. It lit me on fire, and my learning went from regimented to an out-of-control fire hose."-Jay Silver, Founder/CEO MakeyMakey, PhD MIT Media Lab
". . .shook up my family's views of learning and life, and gifted us with liberating and exhilarating new ways of experiencing our unschooling journey. Its refreshing rebellious philosophy is infused into our lives to this day. . . . a must-read for anyone who is considering the grand adventure of unschooling."-Leo Babauta, author and blogger, Zen Habits
"Three pivotal events divide my life into 'Before' and 'After' moments: 1) meeting my wife, 2) becoming a parent, and 3) reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook. . . ."-Ken Danford, co-founder of North Star Self-Directed Learning and Liberated Learners, author of Learning is Natural, School is Optional
"I encourage the slow drinking in of this book. . . . Grace offers plenty of madd question-askin' opportunities, and plenty of invitations to challenge what you thought you knew about the purpose and power of education, so that you can be a liberation zone for a young person in your life."-Akilah S. Richards, Author: Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work
"When I was a disillusioned public school teacher, a chance encounter with The Teenage Liberation Handbook changed my life. It gave me hope that a better and more meaningful life was possible for the young people I worked with-and for me too."-Joel Hammon, co-founder of Princeton Learning Cooperative and Liberated Learners, author of The Teacher Liberation Handbook
"Grace Llewellyn inspired many teenagers, and their parents, to let go of a schooled mindset and embrace the freedom of life without school. In this spectacular, updated edition we are inspired all over again by her wisdom and work over the past 30 years."-Kerry McDonald, author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom
"This is a very dangerous book. It contradicts all the conventional wisdom about dropouts and the importance of a formal education. It is funny and inspiring. Do not, under any circumstances, share this book with a bright, frustrated high-schooler being ground into mind fudge by the school system." -Pat Wagner in Bloomsbury Review
"Heartily recommended to every flavor of human being, not just teenagers. . . . Sooner or later you're going to realize that you've been cheated out of a real life by missing a real education-when that time comes Grace Llewellyn's Handbook will save you a thousand hours of frustration, false starts and missed opportunities." -John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991, author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling