Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

by Andrea Elliott

The teacher still does not know where Dasani lives, or how hungry she gets. She comes in late most mornings, never saying why. She seems sleepy, as if she just rolled out of bed. The truth is that Dasani has been up for hours. By the time other children are just waking, she has finished her chores and is scrambling to walk her siblings to their bus stop. This would alarm any teacher, prompting a call home or possibly to the authorities. So Dasani keeps it to herself. Every morning, she slips into class quietly, tucking her coat and backpack into the closet, a precious ritual for a girl with no other closet. Her sixth-grade homeroom, true to its name, is becoming a substitute home—a cozy haven of book-lined shelves and inspirational phrases scrawled in chalk. Dasani likes to recite them out loud. “Success does not come without sacrifice and struggle,” she reads, after settling into her desk. Miss Hester can see that Dasani lacks proper clothes and snacks, even basic school supplies. Yet she is keeping up in class, performing well enough to mask her troubles. She possesses, to Miss Hester’s mind, an “intuitive” approach to learning, the kind that comes when rare smarts mix with extreme circumstances.