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

Amazing Grace is Jonathan Kozol's classic book on life and death in the South Bronx—the poorest urban neighborhood of the United States. He brings us into overcrowded schools, dysfunctional hospitals, and rat-infested homes where families have been ravaged by depression and anxiety, drug-related violence, and the spread of AIDS. But he also introduces us to devoted and unselfish teachers, dedicated ministers, and—at the heart and center of the book—courageous and delightful children. The children we come to meet through the friendships they have formed with Jonathan 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. Amidst all of the despair, it is the very young whose luminous capacity for love and transcendent sense of faith in human decency give reason for hope.

A bestselling author despite, or perhaps because of, the disturbing news he brings readers, Kozol--whose Savage Inequalities spent four weeks on the New York Times bestseller list--speaks once again to the conscience of the country. This book offers an unforgettable, moving portrait of the lives of a handful of desperately poor children, living in the South Bronx, who retain their innocence and wonder against all odds.