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Ordinary Resurrections Ordinary Resurrections is an inside look at an aspect of America we try to ignore: poverty. His book reveals the personal stories behind the statistics. It gives the people, so often lumped together and given the collective name of Underprivileged Children, names, faces, personalities, and souls. Kozol researched this book by taking the time to visit schools, eat lunch with the children, attend the local church, establish relationships with the families, and shop for Christmas gifts from a second-grader's wish list. The facts and numbers given in his book become something more. They are pleas for Americans to open their eyes and realize who is being affected by poverty and how little is actually being done to combat the problem. Ordinary Resurrections documents the lives of the children growing up in the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. By combining journalistic research, personal narratives, and dialogues of his conversations with the children of the neighborhood, Kozol is able to make the reader understand the frightening truth behind the statistics. He subtly (and not so subtly) brings to light all the issues that have been hidden in the dark and encourages his readers to be a voice for those who are too young or too meek to have a voice of their own. Although this book deals with deep social issues and is laced with statistics and facts, it's an easy read. Kozol's style of combining journalism with personal stories pulls his audience in and includes them in the life of the children and families of the South Bronx of New York. What makes it hard to read is the nature of the stories, the basic neglect by America of her own poor children--which also makes it such a necessary book. "It's easy to forget how much of the existence of a seven-year-old child has to do with the things that are not big at all and do not lend themselves to generalities and are, indeed, so small and so specific they would seldom earn a mention in a government report or book of sociology. The life of a child, after all, is made up not of social 'constructs' or developmental 'trends,' but of much smaller things like stomachaches or hurtful words or red Crayola crayons." |
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