Jonathan Kozol Book / Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation / 1st Edition, 1st print Hardcover / 1995, Crown / Nonfiction, Education, Sociology, Social Justice

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?

The author of Savage Inequalities, a New York Times best-seller, and Rachel and Her Children, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, tells the stories of a handful of children who have--through the love and support of their families and dedicated community leaders--not yet lost their battle with the perils of life in America's most hopeless, helpless, and dangerous neighborhoods.

Title: Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation

Author: Jonathan Kozol

Series: n/a

Hardcover: 286 Pages

Printing: 1st

Publisher: Crown Publishers (1995)

Language: English

Condition: Near Fine (See Condition Notes)

Condition Notes: 1st edition, 1st print vintage hardcover, with unclipped dust jacket. Teal and brown boards, gilt lettering. Text and pages clean and unmarked Very minor age, shelf and handling wear. A nice vintage copy of this nonfiction book by Jonathan Kozol.