There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America
There Are No Children Here, the true story of brothers Lafeyette and  Pharoah Rivers, ages 11 and 9 at the start, brings home the horror of trying to make it in a violence-ridden public  housing project. The boys live in a gang-plagued war zone on Chicago's West Side, literally  learning how to dodge bullets the way kids in the suburbs learn to chase baseballs. "If I  grow up, I'd like to be a bus driver," says Lafeyette at one point. That'sif, notwhen--spoken with the complete innocence of a child. The book's title comes  from a comment made by the brothers' mother as she and author Alex Kotlowitz contemplate the  challenges of living in such a hostile environment: "There are no children here," she says.  "They've seen too much to be children." This book humanizes the problem of  inner-city pathology, makes readers care about Lafeyette and Pharoah more than they may expect to, and offers a  sliver of hope buried deep within a world of chaos.