Books for Prep | |
 List Price: $29.95 Price: $4.89 You Save: $25.06 (84%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Edition: Unabridged Format: Bargain Price Number Of Items: 6 Publication Date: April 01, 2000 Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: Stepping back from his 30-year attack on the inequalities of education, Jonathan Kozol allows the children to speak for themselves in Ordinary Resurrections. These are the schoolchildren of South Bronx's most dismal neighborhood, Mott Haven, where social struggles with poverty and imprisoned fathers rate just under AIDS and asthma as the greatest threats to young lives. Yet, Kozol marvels, despair and bitterness don't come to mind when you meet 10-year-olds like Ariel, who "skips through life" and displays a healing tenderness to others at the church afterschool program that has become a living laboratory of sorts for Kozol since he wrote Savage Inequalities in 1996. This is "not the land of bad statistics but the land of licorice sticks and long division, candy bars and pencil sets," he writes. In recording conversations between these kids and each other, their teachers, caretakers, parents, and even himself, Kozol manages to move the adults to the periphery in order to let the children teach. There is no government data, no research conclusions, only a sense of hope and wonder at the resiliency of the young. Kozol readily admits that he's due for a reflective moment. In his 60s, living alone, his parents seriously ill, he seeks safety in surrounding himself with children. He confesses that he's not a religious man, yet he finds himself overcoming his awkwardness with prayer, even bowing his head with the children at times. His writing in this moving account is among his most eloquent, as when he describes the gentle way in which a teacher tugs for the attention of a dreamy first-grader as if carefully unwrapping a small package that may be breakable. He captures the rhythm of the exchanges between teacher and student in a way that practically whispers to the reader. Ultimately, this is a book about healing that reveals more about the lives of children in poor neighborhoods--and Kozol--than any of his prizewinning books to date. --Jodi Mailander Farrell Product Description: Jonathan Kozol's books have become touchstones of the American conscience. In his most personal and optimistic book to date, Jonathan returns to the South Bronx to spend another four years with the children who have come to be his friends at P.S. 30 and St. Ann's. A fascinating narrative of daily urban life seem through the eyes of children, Ordinary Resurrections gives the human face to Northern segregation and provides a stirring testimony to the courage and resilience of the young. Yet another classic of unblinking social observation from one of the finest writers ever to work in the genre, Ordinary Resurrections is a piercing discernment of right and wrong, of hope and despair -- from our nations's corridors of power to its poorest city streets. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Ordinary Guilt-TripsThe Bronx has a long history. I'm always bumping into middle-aged and elderly professionals from the Bronx. Their mothers scrubbed floors; they went to City University. They now live in million-dollar condos in Manhattan. The ghetto is a conveyor belt for those who make up their minds to sacrifice their youth for future gain. Today's Bronx looks very much as Kozol describes. The very young are cute and inspiring, I suppose, but there must be a reason he leaves out the teens and their older brothers ... Read More Rating: - Poignant, powerful, importantOrdinary Resurrections is one of the most important books I've ever read and one of the most poignantly beautiful. It is an absolute must read for everyone who cares about children, the wide disparity in economic opportunity in the U.S., and who dares to hope for our future. Kozol movingly brings to life in his first-hand descriptive account the lives and conditions in their own words of children and their families who have been deliberately neglected, ignored, hidden away. This true story of their ... Read More Rating: - Touching Portraits of ResilienceIn Ordinary Resurrections, Jonathan Kozol deviates from his usual "gloves off" attack of the issues facing minority children. Instead of building the case against the inequitable system with facts and figures, as he has in previous work, he has chosen the subtle but effective approach of a storyteller. He paints a very descriptive portrait of the victims of continued segregation and racism that may inspire those in positions of influence to make more compassionate decisions regarding the lives of the ... Read More Rating: - Anything but OrdinaryThis powerful work is at once inspiring, frustrating and captivating. Kozol draws the reader into a world called Mott Haven that is filled with substance, love, service and hope. He poignantly describes the lives of children while blasting the manner in which we have chosen to deal with our most needy sectors of society. Kozol's gifted and powerful storytelling reminds us of several truths: 1. Segregation is potentially a bigger problem today than ever. White flight, private schools, school ... Read More Rating: - In the Children's WordsJonathan Kozal has taken away the protective myth that America's school children are all treated equally, with dignity and given unvarying opportunities. In his latest book, ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS, Kozal's readers get a glimpse into a reality that replaces equal value with present day segregation to children of the poor. Although many in power would like to ignore the disgrace of how our underprivileged students are educationally treated in areas such as Mott Haven, New York, Kozal's first hand account of ... Read More 
In association with Amazon.com | |