Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago
by LeAlan Jones, David Isay, Lloyd Newman
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 294)
recommended to Stephanie by:
college professor
recommends it for: Everyone; educators especially
recommends it for: Everyone; educators especially
This was such an insightful view of life in the "ghetto" through the eyes of two teenagers (with the help of an NPR journalist). David Isay has these two thirteen-year-old boys, LeAlan and Lloyd, document their lives in the South Side of Chicago tenements. A few years later, two boys (ten and eleven years old) push a five-year-old out of a fourteen-story building and kill him. David Isay goes back to LeAlan and Lloyd and asks them for some more help. The goal is to try and understa...more
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I recremmend this book to every one in this world...
This heartbreaking and inspiring book goes a long way toward fulfilling the wish one of its authors, LeAlan Jones, makes in his epigraph: "You must learn our America as we must learn your America, so that, maybe, someday, we can become one." Based on hours and hours of taped interviews that Jones and Lloyd Newman, two high school students, conducted for two National Public Radio documentaries they prepared in 1993 and 19...more
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My good friend at work, who teaches freshman reading, handed this to me and said "I'm reading this with my classes because I had a copy on my desk and Tiesha picked it up, opened it to a picture and said, 'hey! that's my cousin!'." Powerful stuff, really interesting, and a fast read.
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Read in February, 2008
Everyone should read this book. Two Chicago kids take you on a journey through their home: the Ida B. Wells projects on the south side of Chicago.
After I finished the book, I obsessively searched the internet to find out if the two authors made it out of the projects for good (both Lloyd and LeAlan went to college).
There are many lessons to take away from this book. Most importantly: you have to work every day to make *buzz*change*word*. And folks like myself, white, male, and privileg...more
After I finished the book, I obsessively searched the internet to find out if the two authors made it out of the projects for good (both Lloyd and LeAlan went to college).
There are many lessons to take away from this book. Most importantly: you have to work every day to make *buzz*change*word*. And folks like myself, white, male, and privileg...more
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Read in January, 2000
recommends it for:
Chicagoans & people who think they understand poverty....
This book does for poverty and life in public housing what My Bloody Life does for gang life -- it demystifies, humanizes and makes real, without insulting the reader with schmaltz or excuses. Written in two parts, by two boys who live in the Ida B. Wells projects; the first part was compiled when the boys were thirteen, and the later parts when they were 16. Stunning photography, too. Changed the way I look at the housing projects all Chicagoans find themselves driving past and shuddering, won...more
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Read in September, 2008
recommended to Joshlyn by:
teacherrecommends it for: everyone
i started this book nd never got da chance to finish it, but whati read so far was so good. it talks about all their experiences in life everything they went through in the ghetto. its a wonderful book.
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
Everyone
This is a great book, based on a pair of radio documentaries made by a couple of kids from the Ida B. Wells projects with help from producer David Isay. LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman recorded a week in their lives in the 1993, and in 1996 investigated the murder of Eric Morse, a 5-year old boy who was pushed out of a 14th-story window of one of the project's high-rise buildings.
The writing is concise, and the photographs of the people that the boys interviewed (taken by another teen, John B...more
The writing is concise, and the photographs of the people that the boys interviewed (taken by another teen, John B...more
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Right now since I am reading the book in the class it has been a good book. I like the story so far because it is funny and the kids like to mess around.
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1 comments
I learned if u live a hard life look at it and your neighborhood is jacked say to yourself " I'm going to be better than that "
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Our America is a really amazing book.I have only read half with the class and already i love it. Can't wait to read what happens next
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This was a really good book to raed in class. This story is about two kids showing us how they live in the ghetto life
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Read in January, 1998
Heartbreaking. The sweetness and innocence of these kids makes it all the more so. A great idea of the adults involved in the creation of this book to give these two talented teenagers tape recorders to document their lives culminates in a poignant and haunting story of the lives and deaths on Chicago's south side that impact the lives of the book's two young protagonists. Things written by adults are rarely this honest and brave.
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it talks about the gang life and how it affects the people around that kind of place.
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19 comments
This book is 1 of the best books of all time. THIS BOOK IS 1 OF MY FAVORITE, I REALLY,REALLY AND I MEAN REALLY MEAN TO READS THIS BOOK
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Read in December, 2004
I used to teach this book. Great for teaching nonfiction reading strategies and kids love it because they see themselves in it.
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this book is abot two men . when they where both a least 13 to 14 years old they recorded what they said or say in this book
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This book is awsome becauz it talks about the real word the things there are passing by.
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Read in September, 2008
This book is really about the ghetto not like any other books I know
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its a good book cuz its bout 2 kids dat tlk bout der surondins
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