This book is important on many levels. First, it’s a work by students about issues, in and out of school, that affect them, and this is intrinsically important. It’s as rare as a red moon when we actually ask young people for their opinions about the workings of the world they live in.

Second, the students have written their essays in both English and Spanish, and that, too, is important. We need to make it plain and make it heard that being bilingual is a great advantage in the 21st century. For too long English Language Learners, or those from homes where English was the second language, were deemed at a disadvantage. This assumption must change. Bilingual and bicultural students can and should take pride in the fact that their bilingualism will be a passport for them in life; it will open up employment opportunities, facilitate travel, and allow them to be bridges between communities here and abroad.

Third, for this book, the student-authors became reporters, and the practice of journalism is one of the best ways for high school students, and anyone at all, to become critical thinkers, to step outside the house and the classroom to ask real-world questions of actual human beings. The student-authors in this book have all become journalists, have all asked tough questions of adults, experts, people who share their city, and the results are invariably potent and enlightening. The reader learns something new in every single essay.

Here’s one example that takes a big problem, and through inquiry, makes it approachable and even solvable. Student-journalist Eneirys Nova sought to explore global warming and other human effects on the environment, and she did what any good reporter should do: she started local. She chose to write about what the Boston Public Schools do to reduce their carbon footpring, and to explore this, she didn’t just look up statistics or quote already-written articles; she interviewed Phoebe Beierle, the Sustainability Manager for the Boston Public Schools, to get the latest information from the person in charge and most accountable.

After discussing various broader topics, Eneirys and Beierle get into the subject of composting. As we can all imagine, the food waste at a school of a thousand students, all of whom are eating one or two meals during the schoolday, is monumental. If it’s thrown in the garbage and then into a landfill, it’s unlikely to break down much or at all–this usable waste just goes to waste. Ms. Beierle explains that they’re trying t get composting to work, but so far the economics haven’t been feasible But crucially, during Eneirys’ interview, we discover that the problem is not insurmountable or even confusing. Instead, it’s highly specific and approachable. It comes down to an eighty-cent compost bag.

The schools want to compost, and the farms that could use the compost wants the schools to compost, but getting the compost to the farms requires compost bags, and these bags are just too expensive for a budget-strapped district. But note that Eneirys has taken a big and abstract problem and made it specific and solvable. That’s what a student-journalist can do: they can ask questions, they can publish answers, they can enlighten readers and even give them hope.

I love student journalism. Over the last fifteen years at 826 National, I’ve seen it make students into activists, into better artists and citizens, and yes, into professional journalists. This book demonstrates the kind of impact student-journalists can have. I happen to have read Eneirys’ essay on the way to Washington DC, where I was attending a gathering of arts administrators discussing the idea of the Citizen Artist—that is, the notion that musicians, painters, dancers and writers can use their talents to engage in issues of social justice, to better our democracy. Yo-Yo Ma was there. Theaster Gates was there. Alice Waters and Carrie-Mae Weems and Renee Fleming and Brian Greene. And though the student writers of Attendance Would Be 100% weren’t there in person, I felt them there in spirit. Writers like Eneirys and her classmates—all of them citizen artists—have real power and must use it.

Dave Eggers