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Summary: I needed this book
Review: I teach remedial English and reading at a middle school with a high poverty rate, a 40% latino population, and a big gang problem. All of my students are Latino, most are boys, and most are constantly in trouble at school, if not with the law. This book doesn't have all the answers, but it went a long way towards helping me understand where my troubled boys are coming from and why they act the way they do.
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Summary: We've needed this book for a long, long time.
Review: This book is a moving interweaving of autobiographical anecdotes, patiently accumulated facts (did you know that more is spent in the US on prisons than on college educations? See malepsych.com for more such data), and concrete suggestions for understanding our national epidemic of angry youth and doing something constructive about it. Don't let the impotence of current national solutions and quick-fixes ("just say no"; "bring your child to work day"; etc. ad nauseum) convince you that the problem of angry young men is insoluble. It's not. In fact, the suggestions offered by the author throughout the book are relevant, doable, sensible, and verifiable. Grouping the outside forces that make for violence into six Pathways to Prison, Dr. Kipnis goes on to explain what they look and feel like from inside the young rager--and it is that part we sorely lack in our sorry stabs at "explaining" youth violence from the outside, its perpetrators objects to be warehoused for a profit as slave labor. Most of the violent males I've counseled have already done jail or prison time--and yet even with them, listening carefully, confronting them firmly and respectfully with the consequences of their behavior, educating them about basics like managing addictions and painful emotions, and showing them that strong males can be gentle, patient, and nonviolently assertive gave our counseling center (Cornerstone) close to a 90% success rate (meaning: 90% men who completed the full program never reviolated their probation). I wish I'd had this book available then, for them and for me. So much more can be done with young men before they ever get to this point! Dr. Kipnis is President of the Fatherhood Coalition, a nonprofit that among other things encourages fathers to be an active, available part of their childrens' lives. I can tell you that of the hundreds of violent men I've worked with, not one--not one!--had had an adequate, let alone loving, relationship with his father. Given our country of unavailable dads (and moms, of course), do you begin to see why more young men are imprisoned in the US than were locked up in pro-aparteid Africa? This and other dynamics behind the immense problem of young male violence are explained in this book with clarity, erudition, and personal experiences convincing far beyond the usual theoretical models. The Talmud talks about the "Master of Return," the man who took the wrong way and then found the right way; in the eyes of God such a man stands higher than even the angels in heaven. One such man has penned this book, as you'll see for yourself when you read it. If you spend any time at all around young males, or if you simply want to understand what's going on in their world, then this resource is indispensable.
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Summary: A must read for any one who works with young men
Review: This book is excellent! I work in a correctional facility and it has really helped me to understand the young men that I work with. I plan on reading it with them and having discussions on the information presented. Many of these young men come from the "5-H club" mentioned in the book. They need people who understand where they have come from and what they have gone through. I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished for their crimes, but I feel we need to find alternative solutions for these young men, rather than putting them in an adult prison where they only learn new and more dangerous crimes from the hardened criminals.
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