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

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Amazon.com
     There Are No Children Here, the true story of brothers Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, ages 11 and 9 at the start, brings home the horror of trying to make it in a violence-ridden public housing project. The boys live in a gang-plagued war zone on Chicago's West Side, literally learning how to dodge bullets the way kids in the suburbs learn to chase baseballs. "If I grow up, I'd like to be a bus driver," says Lafeyette at one point. That's if, not when--spoken with the complete innocence of a child. The book's title comes from a comment made by the brothers' mother as she and author Alex Kotlowitz contemplate the challenges of living in such a hostile environment: "There are no children here," she says. "They've seen too much to be children." This book humanizes the problem of inner-city pathology, makes readers care about Lafeyette and Pharoah more than they may expect to, and offers a sliver of hope buried deep within a world of chaos.

From School Library Journal
     YA-- Life in Chicago's Henry Horner housing project robbed Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers of their childhood and innocence. The crowded apartment housed LaJoe, six of her eight children, and a procession of needy relatives and friends. Bleaker than the overcrowding was the physical condition of the apartment; conditions outside were worse. Drug use, crime, shootings, and other violence were commonplace. Retribution sure and swift followed if someone saw or knew too much. Through his extensive research and his intimate friendship with the Rivers family, Kotlowitz paints a poignant, heartbreaking picture of life in the inner-city ghetto and the overwhelming odds children must overcome to break out of the vicious cycle of poverty and crime. A must-read for everyone. --Grace Baun, R. E. Lee High Sch . , Springfield, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
     In this powerful and moving book (an expansion of his 1988 Wall Street Journal series), reporter Kotlowitz traces two years in the lives of ten-year-old Lafeyette and seven-year-old Pharoah Rivers as they struggle to beat the odds and grow up in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Confronted with violent gangs, persistent poverty, and personal tragedies (a beloved older brother is convicted on robbery charges), the brothers differ in their attempts to survive. Lafeyette replaces his frequently absent father as the man of the house, trying to help his mother and to protect his younger siblings from the dangers of the project. Sensitive and imaginative Pharoah seeks escape through his daydreams and schoolwork. Unless they have hearts of stone, few readers will fail to become emotionally involved with these boys, as Kotlowitz did. Proceeds from the book's sales will be used to set up a trust fund for them, and Oprah Winfrey has bought the film rights. Highly recommended.
- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Synopsis
     Examines the lives of two inner-city brothers who live in a Chicago housing project and their daily struggle for survival and enduring hope.

Ingram
     A touching, meticulous portrait of two boys growing up in a Chicago housing project reveals how they help each other maintain a shred of innocence among street gangs, gunfire, violence, and drugs. Reprint. NYT.

From the Publisher
     This is the moving and powerful account of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime and neglect.

     "Alex Kotlowitz joins the ranks of the important few writers on the subject of urban poverty." -- Chicago Tribune.

From the Back Cover
     "Alex Kotlowitz joins the ranks of the important few writers on the subject of urban poverty." -- Chicago Tribune.
 

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