There are No Children Here (1991 original; edició 1992)

Would be unfair for me to evaluate this book... It was written well and probably is good but I just don't get in to human interest stories like this. I of course felt bad for the family's situation but it was written in a way that seemed to want to force the reader to feel bad. Not just a story of poverty but gritty harsh poverty.. Read it and make sure you weep, the author seems to be saying. ( )

The author spends 1987 - 1989 interviewing two brothers, Layfayette and Pharoah Rivers, who grow up in Henry Horner, a housing project on the west side of Chicago. They are two of eight children, the father has mostly checked out and the mother has done her best to hold down some jobs, but mainly supports her family (and interlopers) via government assistance. Henry Horner is decrepit, gunfire is a regular occurrence, and the lure of joining a gang or selling drugs is hard for many impoverished kids to pass up. ( )

My teenage nephew asked me to read this book, so I am.

First, this is a beautifully written book. There is a compassion that flows through the narrative while never once being afraid to tell the bad along with the good of its characters. Fiction writers would kill to be so compelling, but this is nonfiction. Secondly, it struck me that this could easily have been the story of a family trying to make ends meet in some American frontier town but caught amidst the crime and lawlessness of the old west. But this is not about old time Deadwood or Tombstone. This is about modern day Chicago. The book ends with some small degree of optimism, but it appears the degradation of life that this story covers has lived long afterwards. Some good news was that Oprah Winfrey made a TV movie from this book, and that the author helped significantly in the lives of the family members after finishing the book. The bad and very sad news is that the actor, who played Lafeyette in the movie, was later fatally shot at a West Side Chicago gas station, much like could have happened to the real Lafeyette. Even more sad is that Pharoah, perhaps the most sympathetic character in the book, even after making it out of the Chicago jungle into college, was sentenced in June of this year to 45 months in prison for his part in a heroin-delivery case. But then, anyone who has read this book would already realize how very very hard it would be for someone in that environment to break free. Highly recommended reading. ( )

Powerful story - reminding us that America is not really interested in caring for our children. ( )