ARGUMENT
This author, Kozol, argues about the desolate conditions in the South Bronx area. He really attempts to open the readers eyes to the poverty conditions that these people are living in.
He tells his own personal story about his long walk with a 7 year-old boy named Cliffie, that goes to the St. Ann's Church. When the boy is walking him down all different streets around the church he would stop and tell him what certain places are. At one point they pass a building and Cliffie says "they burn bodies there.". Kozol expresses that the boy did not seem sad when he told him this. That really showed how even children have become so used the terror, and poverty that they live in. Kozol gave gruesome examples of murders that had taken place around that area and on guy was found in a bathtub and his had had been decapitated. He gets his message across in a very powerful way. When you bring children into the situation it automatically makes people listen more carefully because children don't chose to be living in those conditions, they are just born into that life. It really gets the message across. I really enjoyed this reading.
Comments: I think it was really great how Kozol described the church as the communities safe haven. A place that children and families can go to escape the violence that they live in. He used a great example of the pastor Martha Overall carrying a new baby. He referred the the church as a "gentle sanctuary" and the way he described it made it sound like that. As a reader it sort of gave me a glimpse of hope for the community and the people in it. There was clearly still good in this community and it gives hope that maybe they can spread that good and make their city a better and safer community.
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