Book: Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope, by Jonathan Kozol
"Childhood ought to have at least a few entitlements that aren't entangled with utilitarian considerations. One of the should be the right to a degree of unencumbered satisfaction in the sheer delight and goodness of existence in itself. Another ought to be the confidence of knowing that one's presence on this earth is taken as an unconditional blessing that is no contaminated by the economic uses that a nation does or does not have for you."
Kozol has written so often to expose the injustices of a class-and-race-segregated American education system and the social inequalities imbedded within society itself, while upholding the humanity and the dignity of those living under such oppression. This book is more a personal reflection in which he writes of all the reasons he returned to a little section of the South Bronx, NY hundreds of times after his writings and investigations were completed: the children he met there, and the adults who cared for them. It is difficult to describe all of the emotions elicited by his writing, much less to post in a blog.
3 comments:
If I find a review overwhelming like that, I don't worry about doing the work justice with a review, but just make some notes about how I relate to it from my current perspective. Your review is important to me not because of the book, but because you read it...
Dylan, you're right. It's a cursed habit from my grad school days that all my writing must be relatively objective. In that case:
More on my personal reflections. There were two things that I was struck with. One was the strength and character of the host of women who care for the children. Women play the role of both patriarch and matriarch in a neighborhood where the majority of the men are in prison. The role they play in the lives of these children is immeasurable. The other was the religious faith of the children and the impression it makes on Kozol, who is Jewish. It amazed me how much insight came out just by asking the children simple questions about life, God, etc. Their beliefs clearly challenged Kozol's (as well as my own...)
Wow - see, now that makes me want to read it and talk more with you about it! (Now if I can increase my reading speed to anywhere near my typing speed, we might get somewhere...)
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