Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago (Paperback)

~ LeAlan Jones (Author), Lloyd Newman (Author) "LeAlan: My name is LeAlan Jones, I am thirteen years old, and I live with my family in a house around the corner from the..." (more)
Key Phrases: fourteenth floor, vacant apartment, Little Wayne, Eric Morse, The Wells (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This heartbreaking and inspiring book goes a long way toward fulfilling the wish one of its authors, LeAlan Jones, makes in his epigraph: "You must learn our America as we must learn your America, so that, maybe, someday, we can become one." Based on hours and hours of taped interviews that Jones and Lloyd Newman, two high school students, conducted for two National Public Radio documentaries they prepared in 1993 and 1995, Our America is a no-holds-barred look at the devastatingly poor Chicago neighborhood in which they live. It's a world where elementary school students learn about sex and drugs before they learn how to read, and where many boys do not expect to live to be 20. You finish the book marveling not that so many of those who people it are trapped, but wondering that anyone survives at all. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

When they were 13, Jones and Newman gained notoriety by telling personal stories of life in the poor, violent, and desolate world of Chicago's Ida B. Wells Homes in the award-winning National Public Radio (NPR) documentaries "Ghetto Life 101" and "Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse." Drawing from more than 100 hours of tapes unused in the original broadcasts, the now 17-year-old authors, with assistance from NPR producer Isay, have created a frank and provocative view of America's minorities from the inside out and bottom up. Scrutinizing life in their poor South Side neighborhood through the experiences of friends, families, and teachers, the authors reveal how disenfranchised from mainstream America the ghetto has become. Jones poignantly states in the opening, "We live in a second America where the laws of the land don't apply and the laws of the street do." A powerful, rousing message for all concerned readers.?Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Scribner Paper Fiction (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671004646
• ISBN-13: 978-0671004644
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #364,153 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Still real and raw, September 22, 2000

By	LeAlan M.Jones (South Side of Our America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our America (School & Library Binding)

I would like to say thank you to those who took the time to read our chronicle on street life. I would like to say that communities like the Ida B. Wells still exist under the same poverty that produced "Our America". Still I thank you readers who were courageous enough to look at America through me(LeAlan)& Lloyd eyes. I would hope that you guys and gals could afford the same opportunity granted to me to some other socailly desearving and deprived child. Thank you! Thank you! Please everyone vote, and if you would like to send me and email its [e-mail]

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our America, February 14, 2006

By	L. S. Muscato "high school teacher" (chicago, il) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Our America, a book by two young boys from a housing project on the South Side of Chicago, is raw and beautiful all at once. It tells the story of the authors, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, as they make their way in the Ida B. Well's housing project and tell the story of a five year-old's death from one of the buildings. The book, which was written by the boys in collaboration with author David Isay, is part journalism, part activism and part reflection. It takes a very factual look at the events of the child's death, there are transcriptions from interviews, and there are their own ramblings and editorializing about what's going on in their part of the country.

The boys become involved simply by bringing their notebooks, pens, tape recorders, cameras (and their instincts) to their own neighborhood. Interview subjects include teachers, young children, cousins, neighbors, the chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority, police officers and lawyers. Their approach is direct and simple - they ask the tough questions of the people in charge. For example, Lloyd asks the CHA chairman, "Would you want your kids growing up in these public houses?" With the help of David Isay, LeAlan and Lloyd become the chroniclers of their particular time and place.

The book's readability level is low - at maximum, it's on a fifth grade level in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure. However, the themes and issues developed in the book are far more advanced. Students of any age level in high school should be able to grasp the content and then think critically about the issues it presents around racism, poverty, gang violence, family structure and public housing. It is a book aimed not only at young people but also the adults in power, the people who make the decisions that affect the poor.

Our America is not something to pick up for light Saturday afternoon reading, or to help you forget about the troubles of the world. Instead it's a book to crack open the minds of two young boys living an all-too-common reality, and face both the issues and the joys that they see every day. Its literary value is lesser than its cultural significance, one of the few books written by young African Americans and one of the few resources for genuine information about what their lives are like.

Our America is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, 1997.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stole my breath, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Our America: Life And Death On The South Side Of Chicago (Paperback)

"Our America" was assigned reading for my course in Child Social Policy. It grabbed me from page one and I could not put it down until it was through (and then I read parts over again). LeAlan and Lloyd walk you down the streets of Chicago and let you have a little peek into their reality -- a world where violence and death are a part of every day life, and instead of focusing on grades in school, children must worry about survival. These young men represent so many children with talents and dreams and potential who are raised in an infertile, even poisonous environment. I wish everyone would read this book and realize that "America" shouldn't change when you cross the tracks.