Customer Reviews

There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

To hardcore conservatives who believe that the plight of the poor is no one's fault but their own, I say: Read this book. To hardcore liberals who believe the poor are oppressed by society and not responsible for their situation, I say: Read this book. "There are No Children Here" shows that life is more complicated than either extreme. The lives of the people in this book are governed by complex interactions of both personal choices and unavoidable bad luck. The author sympathetically examines the terrible hardships his subjects were born into, but never shies away from showing how their situation is perpetuated by the harmful behavior and relationships they choose to pursue. Whatever your ideology is going in, you will not look at poverty the same way after reading this book.

This book describes a social atmosphere that few people actually experience or fully understand. It only provides a glimpse into the lives of two boys growing up in one of Chicago's public housing areas, but it will leave an everlasting impression in the minds of its readers. Alex Kotlowitz follows the lives of these two young boys as they attempt to navigate through the gang wars, police and government deficiencies, and the poverty stricken Chicago slums. The boys are under 15 years of age, yet they are forced to make decisions that people much older than them struggle with every day. They are forced to struggle through their childhood in poverty and without a father to guide them in those struggles. Kotlowitz looks at the two boys as they watch their friends and family members perish in gang and drug wars, police brutality, or hauled off to prison for other crimes. They also watch as their mother struggles to provide for her family and the governments inefficient handling of Chicago's public housing. The author is able to show the young boys struggle to get an education and succeed in an area filled with failures. They have few role models to guide their decisions and few opportunities for success. Alex Kotlowitz is able to point out the constant struggle these young boys have faced and the opportunities that they are deprived of. He shows how the environment both physically and mentally hampers the two boys opportunity for success and a normal childhood. The book provides an excellent look into the mental struggles they faced as their friends got caught up in gangs, were killed, and started committing petty crimes. Overall this book provides an excellent depiction of life in the Chicago public housing, and the struggle of those two boys as they attempt to survive and succeed in the ghettos.

It's been a few years since I've read this book in its entirety. I first did so as a requirement for my college minor - Youth Agency Administration. This book, quite simply, changed everything for me. Growing up in a small farming community far away from the violence of the inner city, the only view I ever had of the life led by Lafayette & Pharoah came from snippets of the news from larger cities or from movies. It's easy to question the accuracy of both. However, with every page of "There Are No Children Here," I was drawn into the struggle these boys and their family & friends faced every day. I, as many others who have read their story, do wonder what has happened to all of these people since the ending of the book. Bottom line: Yes, the author's elaborations can seem a bit contrived at times, but the facts of the story alone speak for themselves. And, honestly, given the power of this account, what author would not be a bit emotional & contrived? That's the point. I recommend this book to people all the time...even to my boyfriend who grew up in a Chicago neighborhood similar to the one haunted by Lafayette & Pharoah. Regardless of your reason for reading it, your own background, or what you think your views are now, you will bring something away from the experience.

Alex Kotlowitz's novel was written during the middle and late 1980s. It accurately and truthfully describes the living conditions that existed in a Chicago housing project. He details a three year period in the lives of ten year old Lafayette and seven year old Pharaoh which includes their special adventures on the railroad tracks and their constant fear of gang violence and death. The family is caught up in a "culture of poverty". Mr. Kotlowitz includes many, many true characters including the then mayor, housing execs, politicians, police, and gangbangers in the book. But the beauty of the book is the close bond between the brothers in the mist of surrounding chaos. Today Lafayette is still adjusting, but alive. Pharaoh has graduated high school with the help of Mr. Kotlowitz's, and his mother, LaJoe is well. They have since move from the housing projects, but still reside on the westside of Chicago. Mr. Kotkowitz lives in a suburb outside of Chicago. I was police officer in those projects when this book was written.

I might not have gotten to the second half of this book if it hadn't been assigned for a class. But I'm so glad I did--while the book started out a little slow (a lot of great writing and key information, but not a whole lot to pull the reader onward in the first 100 pages), by the end I was incapable of thinking about poverty in the same way.

While the information in the book is now dated (by journalism standards), Kotlowitz's portrait of the Chicago housing projects is incredibly moving--even readers on the extreme right will be hard-pressed to keep your emotional distance from the characters (surely no one deserves to live in an apartment with raw sewage bubbling up into the kitchen sink).

But though the author could easily have let his narrative degenerate into a depressing, disgusting account of violence, crime, and drugs, he does not: Kotlowitz is determined to present the human side of Pharoah, Lafeyette, LaJoe and their family. Like any other family, they also have their joyous moments--birthday parties and Christmas excursions. Like any other little kid, Pharoah wants to win the spelling bee. Like any adolescent, Lafeyette struggles with peer pressure. And like all mothers, LaJoe worries about her children. But the odds they're trying to overcome are enormous--the neighborhood gangs are omnipresent, and graduating from high school is usually an "if" not a "when." The reader can't help but root for them, all the way to the end.

Make no mistake: this book should be read and contemplated from cover to cover. I am horrified to see some of the reviews given of this book such as given by Mr. Galt, and the unidentified 'reader' who should be too ashamed to reveal who he really is. Read the reviews by the above individuals, and stare into the face of brass hard cruelty and ignorant misunderstanding.

Kotlowitz's book is a look into the lives of two young boys growing up in the hard parts of Chicago, and very sucessfully displays many of the struggles that happen in such areas. The book goes into depth into the lives of the individuals who the book is centered on, and really gives an inside out look at the situation that way too many people are forced to grow up in: in the 'other America' that too many of us are content to ignore. The strong reactions by some (such as Mr. Galt) to this book gives good illustration to what Jürgan Moltmann wisely points out, that "[t]he people who enjoy the modern world because they live on `the sunny side of the street' fear the downfall of their world..." (Moltmann 1996, 135). Kotlowitz brings us into the the 'dark side of the street' to see the view of the world from the eyes of two young boys.

Read this book for yourself and make your own final judgements, but in my opinion and many others, this is an excellent read.

"It wasn't just her home that was crumbling; the neighborhood was too. It was all the perfect metaphor, LaJoe thought, for what was happening to her spirit" (p. 241). There Are No Children Here is a story about a family who grows up in a housing project in inner Chicago that battles greed, violence, racism and poverty day by day. This book portrays the struggles and the great efforts that exist, not only in the housing projects in Chicago, but in all of the United States. Neighborhoods crumble and so do so many families. In a society of violence and hate, there is less and less hope that the people living in these communities will achieve a life of success and triumph.

There Are No Children Here was a remarkable and outstanding book that captured the emotions and feelings of children and adults alike who was battling the brutality and hostility of the neighborhood surrounding them. Although, Kotlowitz was able to capture the many moments of despair in this family's life, as they were living in the Henry Horner Home, he was also able to capture the rare but triumphant moments in their lives as well.

Growing up in a community of hatred and poverty, many of the residents in the Henry Horner projects became untrusting and apprehensive of the people around them. "His face masked his troubles. It was a face without affect, without emotion. Sometimes he appeared stoic or unamused. In an adult, the hollowness of his face might have been construed as a look of judgment. But in Lafayette it conveyed weariness. Even in its emptiness, it was an unforgiving face. He was an unforgiving child" (p. 55). Even though Lafayette's age would assert that he was a child, he has seen too much to be considered a child. He has seen too much and due to all that he has seen, he was unforgiving of many others. "It was a period during which Lafayette didn't seem in touch with himself; his anger and sorrow were tangled inside him, his moods shifting wildly" (p. 215). The sorrow and pain that Lafayette has been through is so much more than a large amount of society can grasp. The characters in this book come across many obstacles in their life, yet they all have different ways of dealing with them. "Shutting out the past was perhaps the only way he could go forward or at least manage the present" (p. 209). I believe that society sometimes forgets that these kids who live in these "projects" are still just kids. "There were moments - like the time a fifteen-year old boy who was on trial for mugging people with a fake gun burst into tears in his mother's arms - when Anne was reminded that whatever their misdeeds, they were still just children" (p. 291). Gangs, hatred, and violence are going to influence children and will cause these children to commit bad deeds but we must always remind ourselves that no matter what was done or committed they are still just children.

Racism was seen a great deal of times throughout the book. "For the first time, Pharaoh, now ten, began to wonder aloud about being black. `Do all black people live in projects?' he asked his mother. `Do all black people be poor?' ....`Why don't people elect black people?' The incident at the stadium had unnerved him. He felt that `the police probably don't like black children or something. The white police don't like black children. That's what I believe.'" (p. 161). Many people living in the Henry Horner Projects did not receive the same respect and did not get the same privileges that other people got because many people were prejudiced. Majorities of the people living in the Henry Horner Projects were black and poor. These two groups of people were looked down upon by society because they lacked money and were black, two things they had very little control over.

Not only did the residents of the Henry Horner Project feel this racism and hatred from the majority of the society but they felt this from the police as well. The police were suppose to be there to protect them and uphold their rights, yet, it seemed as though not even the police could stay unbiased toward the children and people at the Henry Horner Projects. "Lafayette later recalled that one of the policemen had warned him he could get hurt out there at night. `I've been living around here all my life and I ain't got hurt so far,' he told the officer. `Only the police have hurt me'" (p. 161). At Horner, the residents could not depend on the police for justice, "They chose to render justice for themselves" (p. 225).

There Are No Children Here portrayed and depicted the many issues and problems concerning inner city projects in our nation. There are many times that society looks down and frowns upon the people and the crime committed in these projects but I think that we need to realize that a majority of the people living in these projects are still children. Children that in a sense, grows up too fast. Kotlowitz wrote an amazing and breathtaking book about the problems that arise in these projects, as well as the voices of the children in the projects that we rarely hear, and often forget exist. These children often have dreams and hopes, which of many, we, as a middle class society, already have and take for granted. "I was gonna make a wish,' he said. `Hope for our family, like get Terence out of jail, get a new house, get out of the projects.' When he disclosed his appeal, he had to stop talking momentarily to keep himself from crying. It hurt to think of all that could have been" (p. 285).

I think the readers who express dismay at LaJoe and Mr. Kotlowitz for the lack of personal responsibility potrayed in the book are not completely off track; rather, they might be missing the point. The children, like Lafayette and Pharoah, are the victims and the ones for whom our hearts should ache. I live near public housing in Chicago, and I'm not sure what's worse, thinking that the children have to live there, or thinking that they've no place else to go. It's a third world nation in our own back yard and the children are there through no fault of their own. Yes, Mr. Kotlowitz had an agenda, but I truly believe it was an agenda of a better quality of life for America's children. When children in the ghetto see and deal with violence everyday and receive no understanding or services or tools to deal with that violence, how do we expect an escape from the violence to be so easy? Lafayette is the same age as I am and I can't help but wonder where and how he is today.

There are No Children Here is an excellent depiction of life in the inner city projects. This book is about two boys growing up among the drugs, gangs, and violence of a Chicago Housing Project. The boys must grow up fast and learn how to deal with daily shootings, friends dying, drugs, as well as watching friends and family succeed only to fail because life will not let them become more then just a poor, black person living in the Projects. This story gives an accurate description as to the daily life in a housing project. The reader gets to understand what it is like to watch friends die, put a child in prison, watch the father disappoint his children when he comes around, as well how the government reacts towards the citizens in poverty. By focusing on the children the author captures the heart of the reader. It would be hard to live a life like this as an adult, but a child cannot stay a child in these conditions.

I can't begin to describe the feelings I had in reading this tremendous account of Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers. Their accomplishments, shortcomings, and daily submerge into the inconceivable violence of Chicago's Henry Horner Homes was masterfully told by Alex Kotlowitz. It rivals other books in its graphic description of the dismal state of Chicago's public housing units and violent-ridden streets. But it far surpasseses every other book I've read in it's humanization of two boys growing up in "The Other America". I've always felt a sadness for those who live in poverty and are faced by insurmountable challenges every day. But until I read this book, I'd never cried over the human toll. This book made me realize that it's not just anonymous statistical figures that make up the poor, it's kids like Pharoah and Lafeyette. Good kids who grow up with the same ambitions and dreams that I did, but without the means or resources.