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Title details for There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz - Available

There Are No Children Here

The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America

by Alex Kotlowitz
Dion Graham
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

This national bestseller chronicles the true story of two brothers coming of age in the Henry Horner public housing complex in Chicago. Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers are eleven and nine years old when the story begins in the summer of 1987. Living with their mother and six siblings, they struggle against grinding poverty, gun violence, gang influences, overzealous police officers, and overburdened and neglectful bureaucracies.

Immersed in their lives for two years, Kotlowitz brings us this classic rendering of growing up poor in America's cities. There Are No Children Here was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century. It was later made into a television movie for ABC, produced by and starring Oprah Winfrey.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 20, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481586153
      • File size: 308553 KB
      • Duration: 10:42:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The poignant title sets the stage for this 1992 journalistic work, often mistaken for fiction, which exposes life in America's inner-city housing projects. Narrator Dion Graham's even pacing and understated intensity lend sensitivity and immediacy to Kotlowitz's chronicle of his three years of observing the impoverished Rivers family as it struggles with poverty, drugs, gangs, and indifference. Graham's transitions from straight narration to convincing dialogue are seamless and combine with the subject matter to grip the listener and make turning away impossible. Both author and narrator wisely avoid slipping into dramatics, letting events and participants speak for themselves. Although it's more than 20 years old, this powerful account, sadly, is still current and will leave the listener wishing Kotlowitz had written a follow-up. M.O.B. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 4, 1991
      The devastating story of brothers Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, children of the Chicago ghetto, is powerfully told here by Kotlowitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter who first met the boys in 1985 when they were 10 and seven, respectively. Their family includes a mother, a frequently absent father, an older brother and younger triplets. We witness the horrors of growing up in an ill-maintained housing project tyrannized by drug gangs and where murders and shootings frequently occur. Lafayette tries to cope by stifling his emotions and turning himself into an automaton, while Pharoah first attempts to regress into early childhood and then finds a way out by excelling at school. Kotlowitz's affecting report does not have a ``neat and tidy ending. . . . It is, instead, about a beginning, the dawning of two lives.'' These are lives at a crossroads, not totally without hope of triumphing over their origin. ( Apr .

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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