From Amazon:
The children in this book defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented by the media. Tender, generous and often religiously devout, they speak with eloquence and honesty about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them. The book does not romanticize or soften the effects of violence and sickness. One fourth of the child-bearing women in the neighborhoods where these children live test positive for HIV. Pediatric AIDs, life-consuming fires and gang rivalries take a high toll. Several children die during the year in which this narrative takes place.
A gently written work, Amazing Grace asks questions that are at once political and theological. What is the value of a child's life? What exactly do we plan to do with those whom we appear to have defined as economically and humanly superfluous? How cold -- how cruel, how tough -- do we dare be?
A gently written work, Amazing Grace asks questions that are at once political and theological. What is the value of a child's life? What exactly do we plan to do with those whom we appear to have defined as economically and humanly superfluous? How cold -- how cruel, how tough -- do we dare be?
Analysis Questions:
1. What was Jonathon Kozol’s PURPOSE in writing this book?
2. What does this quote mean? "Sometimes, in front of a wonderful place like FAO Schwarz, you wonder if poor kids like these have fantasies of breaking in and stealing toys or games, electric trains- whatever children play with nowadays. If they ever did it. if they just went in one night and cleaned the whole place out, you have to ask if they could ever steal back half as much as has been stolen from them."
3. On page 2 in the first paragraph Kozol writes: In cold of winter, as in summer's heat, a feeling of asphyxia seems to contain the neighborhood. Using context clues from that paragraph what do you think the word asphyxia means?
4. What argument is Kozol making in this passage: The trouble is that jobs like these depend upon the concentration of the poor within 'the service area.' It's like-one portion of the population generates the crime to keep the other part employed. So it's an investment in perpetuation of the ghetto, a guarantee of endless misery that services like these may partially alleviate but also need in order to be justified.
5. On page 4 towards the middle of the page, Kozol writes: His distrust of the mayor is visceral, intense. "I don't like him. I don't like his ways. I don't like the way he speaks about poor people. I don't like his eyes. I watch his eyes. There's too much coldness there." Using context clues what do you think the word visceral means?
6. What are the living conditions of the community living in Washington Heights?
7. In the concluding paragraph of this excerpt Kozol writes: As long as I have visited in inner-city schools like P.S. 65, I have always found the sight of children coming out at three o'clock, their mothers and grandmothers waiting to collect them, tremendously exciting and upsetting at the same time.
Why is seeing the children both exciting and upsetting?
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