Rating: 
Summary: It still reads the same over a year later....
Review: I just re-read ORDINARY RESURRECTIONS and wanted to update my review....the book is just wonderful....and full of such hope! Like other reviewers, I heard Mr. Kozol's interview on National Public Radio during my commute home and was completely enchanted by his stories of Pineapple and her friends in Mott Haven. I ordered the book from amamzon.com and devoured it in two sittings. I cannot remember when a book moved me as much as this one. I'm not sure what gifts God gave Jonathan Kozol, but one of them is true compassion and insight without judgment or pretense. I was continually amazed, as was Kozol, at these children's tenderness, kindness, their incredible gift of insight and their wide-eyed innocence. At the back of the book, there is an address for St. Ann's Church. I will be sending them a check...for St. Ann's Scholars...for Pineapple and Elio and Mother Martha and all the children and caretakers who perform miracles day in and day out. This should be required reading for not only present/future teachers, it should be required reading for the human race. I hope Kozol and his kids win the Pulitzer/Nobel/and any other available award! Read this book...you will be richer for it.
Rating: 
Summary: Kozol has done it again
Review: Having read many of Kozol's previous books, I have developed a great admiration for him and his lifelong dedication to social justice and poor children, and his eloquent arguments on their behalf. I've wondered at how he has managed to spend nearly 40 years of his life in this pursuit. This book shows us why--he truly enjoys and loves the children he advocates for. Like Savage Inequalities and Amazing Grace (both must reads) the children's words themselves move you with their honesty, their innocence, and their hope. I can still see Elio moving his arms to "catch one of God's answers to his prayers". But this book also gives us some insight into Kozol himself--his struggles with the failing health of his parents especially. While his earlier books often were suffused with anger at the inequalities of the public education system and social framework, this book is filled with hope and joy. and a little bit of sadness too. And, surprisingly, it is just as effective.
Rating:
Summary: Kozol has done it again
Review: Having read many of Kozol's previous books, I have developed a great admiration for him and his lifelong dedication to social justice and poor children, and his eloquent arguments on their behalf. I've wondered at how he has managed to spend nearly 40 years of his life in this pursuit. This book shows us why--he truly enjoys and loves the children he advocates for. Like Savage Inequalities and Amazing Grace (both must reads) the children's words themselves move you with their honesty, their innocence, and their hope. I can still see Elio moving his arms to "catch one of God's answers to his prayers". But this book also gives us some insight into Kozol himself--his struggles with the failing health of his parents especially. While his earlier books often were suffused with anger at the inequalities of the public education system and social framework, this book is filled with hope and joy. and a little bit of sadness too. And, surprisingly, it is just as effective.
Rating: 
Summary: overrated
Review: I really have nothing good to say about this book. Maybe I don't like the book because my chest doesn't hold a bleeding heart. That probably is the case. First of all, what is Kozol's purpose for writing the book? What is he trying to prove? Of course educational situation in slum neighborhoods is poor. Is this a secret? I feel bad for anyone who made this revelation after reading the book. Another complaint would be how Kozol throws the term segregation around as liberally as he does. The students he meets with are not the victims of segregation. Segretation is the forced separation of two things. At best, the residents of Mott Haven are victims of economic segregation. Unfortunately, those people have victimized themselves - they are the victims of their own ways of life. There are no men in the neighborhood - boo hoo, let's shed some tears. Where have all the men gone? - to jail for selling drugs. In short, you get what you deserve. In the end, there are incredible problems with this book and I did not find it enjoyable at all. I suppose I'm supposed to feel sympathetic for these people, but we all control our own destinies. If those youngsters decide to get an education and get themselves out of the neighborhood, then I'll applaud. They can sell drugs like everyone else and end up in prison and get their just deserts for their activity and continue the cycle. Open your eyes when you read this book and realize that Kozol has filled this book with liberalized rants and tears. The only people that I feel for are those who are forced to read this drivel. The system will never be perfect and remember, not everyone can graduate and be a doctor or a lawyer. We need to have the local McDonald's and the local gas station staffed too.
Rating:
Summary: Touching Portraits of Resilience
Review: In Ordinary Resurrections, Jonathan Kozol deviates from his usual "gloves off" attack of the issues facing minority children. Instead of building the case against the inequitable system with facts and figures, as he has in previous work, he has chosen the subtle but effective approach of a storyteller. He paints a very descriptive portrait of the victims of continued segregation and racism that may inspire those in positions of influence to make more compassionate decisions regarding the lives of the children they serve. Things that scream out to me from Kozol's book(s): 1) Incarceration vs. Education (do the math!)
The incarceration industry is thriving on blind public support. If taxpayers knew they were paying on the average ten to twenty times more to incarcerate supposed perpetrators of victimless crimes than it would cost to educate them, I'd bet they might even overlook their racist fears. The corporate/federal mentality that chooses to decide early on what these children will bring to the economy seems to prefer them as a product in this system versus potential contributors to something greater. 2) Resilience (despite our conditional "help")
In their innocent naiveté the children neglected by the system remain courageous, hopeful, and resilient. This resilience may diminish as they weather the inequities of the system that oppresses them, but it is often the attribute that enables them to succeed regardless of our preaching and teaching. Just imagine what heights they might reach if they continued to be nurtured as they are by the caring individuals in their lives now. 3) Compassion (essential)
As a beneficiary of white male privilege his reflections from the other side of the gap are poignant and insightful lessons for those of us too far removed from the reality that exists in many of our cities. Even after this racial inequity is acknowledged it is difficult for most of us to express empathy in ways that ring genuine. Kozol does! He is trusted and welcomed by the culture and community he strives to serve. His stories reflect a model for learning and practicing compassion which, in my opinion, may be the single most important factor in saving ourselves from extinction. Kozol repeatedly demonstrates the importance
of compassion in his work. Listen to him! 4) Racism, segregation, inequality (market view politics)
Racism is institutionalized in the United States despite the hope segregation was ending that the civil rights movements of the sixties inspired. "Kids notice that no politicians talk about this. They hear the politicians saying, "We're gonna have tougher standards in your separate-but-not-equal schools. We're gonna raise the bar of academic discipline in your separate-but-not-equal schools." But nobody says we're going to make them less separate and more equal. Nobody says that." - Kozol interview in Education World 5) Toxic environments (no one to litigate)
AIDS, asthma, drugs, violence, toxic pollution, poverty, malnutrition, lack of medical attention, apartheid economics, and neglect are common elements in the environment Kozol's children try to survive in. Basic needs must be satisfied before we can expect children to be receptive to that which we would have them learn. Kozol is issuing a wake-up call to the complacent masses that are either unaware or in denial that this situation is serious and threatens all of us socially, emotionally, and economically. In my opinion, implications for educators that may be gleaned from Kozol's book include:
* The extreme importance of compassion in all aspects of dealing with children.
* Recognition that before we talk about diversity we need to spend a lot more
time in the conversation about racism.
* Locking people up is not rehabilitation and in the long run is socially,
emotionally, spiritually, and economically disastrous. Break the cycle of incarceration!
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: 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 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: 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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