Rating: 
Summary: In the Children's Words
Review: Jonathan Kozal has taken away the protective myth that America's school children are all treated equally, with dignity and given unvarying opportunities. In his latest book, ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS, Kozal's readers get a glimpse into a reality that replaces equal value with present day segregation to children of the poor. Although many in power would like to ignore the disgrace of how our underprivileged students are educationally treated in areas such as Mott Haven, New York, Kozal's first hand account of such inequality calls for a recognition and reformation of America's priorities. Told in the children's words, this book contributes awareness to the desperate need for compassion to and knowledge of the struggles of many American youth. The facts are both shocking and compelling, and will challenge the values one holds to necessitate action on our children's behalf. As Kozal states, the reality is that "...there are few areas in which the value we attribute to a child's life may be so clearly measured as in the decisions that we make about the money we believe it's worth investing in the education of one person's child as opposed to that of someone else's child." Once read, ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS destroys the bliss of ignorance. One is faced with the decision to powerfully act or despairingly ignore.
Rating:
Summary: In the Children's Words
Review: Jonathan Kozal has taken away the protective myth that America's school children are all treated equally, with dignity and given unvarying opportunities. In his latest book, ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS, Kozal's readers get a glimpse into a reality that replaces equal value with present day segregation to children of the poor. Although many in power would like to ignore the disgrace of how our underprivileged students are educationally treated in areas such as Mott Haven, New York, Kozal's first hand account of such inequality calls for a recognition and reformation of America's priorities. Told in the children's words, this book contributes awareness to the desperate need for compassion to and knowledge of the struggles of many American youth. The facts are both shocking and compelling, and will challenge the values one holds to necessitate action on our children's behalf. As Kozal states, the reality is that "...there are few areas in which the value we attribute to a child's life may be so clearly measured as in the decisions that we make about the money we believe it's worth investing in the education of one person's child as opposed to that of someone else's child." Once read, ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS destroys the bliss of ignorance. One is faced with the decision to powerfully act or despairingly ignore.
Rating: 
Summary: Jonathan Kozol's best book to date.
Review: Jonathan Kozol has been writing classic books of conscience on our most important issues for over thirty years. From Death at an Early Age to Amazing Grace, he has made us confront problems of inequality in this country that we can't afford to ignore. With this newest book of his, he does the same, but from a different vantage point. Ordinary Resurrections is about the time he spent with some very special children, from Mott Haven in New York's South Bronx, as they go through the paces of their life--at home, in school, in their after-school program, and in church. It does not dodge the hard questions one must ask about the injustices of one of the country's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods, but it approches the subject with hope. In many ways, it is an answer to his first book, Death at an Early Age--that children in these often terrible circumstances do not die but rather prevail, like children anywhere. He centers on one particular school, PS 30, that is home to some of the best and most enlightened teachers and staff that he has come across in his years. He shows us what people who care can do, even though they, and their institution, are underfunded and treated unfairly by the New York and national educational systems. In so doing, this book is a call to us all to change the educational system, and for people, especially young people, to get involved in the process.On top of everything that is good about this book, it is beautifully written and moving, like all of Jonathan Kozol's work. But there is a spirit, a hope here at work in this book that makes us want to do better, for everyone but mostly for young children.
Rating:
Summary: Ordinary Resurrections: Extraordinary Victories
Review: Jonathan Kozol, author of Ordinary Resurrections, was a teacher in the 1960's until, legend has it, he was fired for reading a Langston Hughes poem to his students in inner-city Boston. Since his forced departure from the classroom, Kozol has been a student of public education, focusing on the inequities of quality of education between the haves and the have-nots. His books include: Death at an Early Age; The Night is Dark and I am far From Home; Rachel and her Children; Savage Inequalities; and Amazing Graces. Kozol describes his current work: "This is a book about a group of children whom I've come to know during their early years of life, not in the infant years but in the ones just after, when they start to go to school and poke around into the world and figure out what possibilities for hope and happiness it holds. Most of these children live within a section of the South Bronx called Mott Haven which, for much of the past decade, was the nation's epicenter for the plague of pediatric and maternal AIDS and remains one of the centers of an epidemic of adult and pediatric asthma that has swept across the inner-city populations of our nation in these years." At the end of the book's introduction, Kozol says: "I'm grateful to the priest and congregation of St. Ann's (Church - of Morrisania - Episcopalian) for giving me the privilege to share the lives of children here...But most of all I'm grateful to the children, who have been so kind and generous to me, as they have been to many people who do nothing to deserve their loyalty and love, which aren't for sale and never can be earned, and who, with bashful voices, tiny fingers, sometimes unintended humor, and wise hearts, illuminate the lives of everyone who know them." Kozol followed the children of P.(ublic) S.(chool) 30 and the eighty children who participate St. Ann's after school program for two years. Their stories and the stories of their parents, teachers and caretakers are anything but ordinary. These children will crawl right into your heart and take up residence. It's been a long time since a book has chronicled so many real-life miracles performed on a daily basis by ordinary people who happen to posses extraordinary compassion, kindness and caring. I challenge anyone who reads Ordinary Resurrections to remain unmoved by Pineapple's brashness, Elio's false bravado, Ariel's insight, Mother Martha (St. Ann's priest) and her dog, or Katrice's adroitness in overseeing the church's kitchen. Some of the stories are uplifting; some will break your heart. Although the book drags a bit in the middle when Kozol attempts to explain educational philosophies in laymen's terms, he never leaves the children long enough to make the intellectual content too boring. If there is justice for Kozol and the children of Mott Haven, this should garner a lot of attention and win awards. Words like Pulitzer, Nobel, and National Book Award will fit nicely behind the title. Ordinary Resurrections should be required reading for all teachers and the rest of the human race, too. It's that good. Kudos to Kozol and his kids. They deserve every good thing in life! Terry Mathews, Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: A Real Eye-Opener
Review: Jonathan Kozol, more than 30 years after writing his first book, Death at an Early Age: the Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in Boston Public Schools, releases Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope. The subtitle, "Children in the Years of Hope", a pretty strong assertion considering what little real hope (a wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment) he claims there is in the South Bronx area he is writing about now. He constructs a pretty bleak picture of the children the subtitle represents. Perhaps it should have been named, Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope against Hope. Most of the children of Mott Haven have faith (belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence), not hope. There is little reason or justification for even the prospect of hope with Kozol's repeated mention of unrelenting drawbacks, disappointing economic constructs and substantial statistics that overshadow the hope he attempts to convey.
Rating:
Summary: a must read for all americans
Review: kozol is my hero. i am a teacher in washington, dc. i see the same things kozol sees, i feel the same way he feels and i am continually frustrated by those who don't. it is impossible to listen to the news and read the papers and get a clear picture of the inequalities in urban education. these kids are every bit as dynamic as kids in the suburbs, and i might even argue that they are more dynamic because they are forced to rise above their problems again and again. i challenge others to forget what the politicians say, forget what the media says, become a teacher or a volunteer in the inner city and meet these special kids. don't let this book just be one that sits on your shelf. use it to motivate you to help make a difference.
Rating:
Summary: a must read for all americans
Review: kozol is my hero. i am a teacher in washington, dc. i see the same things kozol sees, i feel the same way he feels and i am continually frustrated by those who don't. it is impossible to listen to the news and read the papers and get a clear picture of the inequalities in urban education. these kids are every bit as dynamic as kids in the suburbs, and i might even argue that they are more dynamic because they are forced to rise above their problems again and again. i challenge others to forget what the politicians say, forget what the media says, become a teacher or a volunteer in the inner city and meet these special kids. don't let this book just be one that sits on your shelf. use it to motivate you to help make a difference.
Rating:
Summary: compelling and inspirational
Review: kozol manages to do in this book, what he wasn't able to do in other books- simply love the children he was surrounded by. in this work, you can truly feel him love the children of mott haven, and in turn, feel them love him. you are given the awesome opportunity to appreciate unconditional love through his relationships with a host of characters from the community. he is so no longer the outsider he seemed to be in AMAZING GRACE. he has truly become a part of the community he once only studied.
Rating:
Summary: compelling and inspirational
Review: kozol manages to do in this book, what he wasn't able to do in other books- simply love the children he was surrounded by. in this work, you can truly feel him love the children of mott haven, and in turn, feel them love him. you are given the awesome opportunity to appreciate unconditional love through his relationships with a host of characters from the community. he is so no longer the outsider he seemed to be in AMAZING GRACE. he has truly become a part of the community he once only studied.
Rating:
Summary: Heart warming or heart breaking?
Review: Some might describe Jonathan Kozol's "Ordinary Resurrections" as a softer, more positive book than his past attacks on the inequalities of education. While the story-telling style often presents the "warm, fuzzy" experiences Kozol shared with young children in the South Bronx of New York, the primary message is still an alarming exposure of stark inequity in the availability of educational institutions, personnel, and resources for children in the public schools of New York City. The setting for these experiences is a neighborhood known as Mott Haven, one of the most impoverished areas of the city. The majority of Kozol's time is spent visiting with children, parents, teachers, and workers who are connected with an "after school" program housed at St. Ann's, an Episcopalian church in Mott Haven. Children attending St. Ann's after school program have a major advantage over others in the South Bronx; the dedicated volunteer workers who feed them, help them with homework, offer special programs, and often care for them as closely as their own family. Mother Martha, St. Ann's priest is an active participant in all of these activities, as well as spiritual instruction and guidance. Kozol shares bits and pieces of the children's' lives, which include stark realities such as a large percentage of absentee fathers, many who are in prison, an extremely high rate of asthma due largely to poor environmental conditions, a high incidence of AIDS in relatives, gangs, shootings, hunger, lack of health care, and eviction. The term "apartheid education" is used in describing how skin color and class origin still determine curricular provision for these children, limiting their educational resources and their future. Stories shared indicate that expectations are set lower than other areas of the city and children's dreams for the future are effectively stifled. They are encouraged to plan careers as hairdressers, nurse's aides, or technicians, rather than professionals requiring a college degree. Kozol urges us not to impose "global preconceptions on a multitude of diverse personalities and motivations in a given group of' children". The stark reality is that the money spent on children's' education per capita is much less in South Bronx than other areas of the city, and even miniscule compared to the amount spent to incarcerate men in the nearest prison. When Kozol is challenged with the question of whether money really is the only answer to the problems faced by schools serving poorest children in our cities now, he responds, "I think it is fair to answer, No. It is not the only answer, but it is often a precondition for most other answers." Despite the disheartening facts of life and lack of resources, there is a bright side to Kozol's reflections. He describes with wonder at times of "the deep, inextinguishable goodness at the core of creation" evidenced over and over again in the children of Mott Haven. While many term these children resilient, Kozol argues that word does an justice the true qualities that help them prevail, such as ingenuity, courage, love, and especially spiritual faith. "Ordinary resurrection" is a term used by an Episcopal priest named Robert Morris who speaks about the commonplace and frequently unnoticed ways that people rise above their loneliness and fear. He states, "We all lie down. We all rise up. We do this every day. The Resurrection does not wait for Easter." This is the life of the children at Mott Haven. How they rise up every day is the heartwarming encouraging part of Kozol's book. Why they have to do it is the heart-disturbing part that makes the reader want to agree that something needs to be done to invest in these children's' futures, that they deserve a chance at something better. As Kozol asks, "why not give these kids the best we have because we are a wealthy nation and they're children and deserve to have some fun while they're still less than four feet high?"
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