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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Edward Humes' eighth book, out in September, chronicles life inside California’s best public high school, Whitney High here in Cerritos. He spent a year at the United Nations of a school, the kind of place that families will move halfway around the world so their child can attend. An excerpt from the prologue of School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School is posted at CaliforniaAuthors.com.
They are the very picture of wholesome teenage Americana, but for the triple grande lattes and towering mocha Frappuccinos they grab and guzzle as they race back to cheer practice. For kids whose waking hours can start before six a.m. and end somewhere around two or three the next morning — virtually all of that time devoted to school work — the high–octane coffee drinks are no luxury. The only way through the day, they say, is to ride a caffeinated wave.
Humes' Pulitzer was earned in 1989 for coverage of the military at the Orange County Register. He also wrote a column for Buzz magazine.