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berlylovestoread's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Difficult to accept all that this taught. It really shone a bright light on issues. It was realistic not sunshiney. Tragic what generational poverty is doing.
blazekcurrie's review against another edition
5.0
“What if I just write about the kids?”
This was the question guiding Andrea Elliott as she embarked on an eight-year journalism journey that would earn her the Pulitzer Prize, an award she deserves.
I’ve long believed that stories help us understand life's nuance and complexities far better than statistics or academic theories. Stories meet us where we are in ways facts simply cannot. Elliott shares the harsh realities and failures of an impossible system stewarded, in many cases, by good-hearted individuals who hope their diligence will make up for the system's flaws. This is a deeply complicated system surrounded by politically charged laws that have evolved and mutated over time, built on the foundations of racism and economic inequalities. But Elliot navigates this nasty bureaucratic web through the eyes of a child, Dasani. Elliott reaches for a thread that we can all agree with: we should lessen the suffering of innocent children.
It is through story, specifically Dasani’s story, that we break through the politically charged statements and settle on one innocent, yet invisible, child’s experience. A story leading to succinct realities that can alarm those on either side of the political spectrum:
“The unspoken message is clear. In order to leave poverty, Dasani must also leave her family.”
A story that can criticize the system while honoring those who show up and fight for children and families in the system.
“There is no right answer. Such is the paradox of ‘social work,’ two words that merge awkwardly at best.”
A story that gives the statistics a real face, like learning about Dasani’s great grandfather, a veteran struggling to make ends meet, then reading statistics that could have come straight out of The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.
“Out of nearly 71,000 mortgages insured by the GI Bill in New York and Northeastern New Jersey in 1950, less than 1 percent went to nonwhite veterans.”
Elliot does her best to help us feel the real pains of a failing system through the eyes of one family. Her words are poignant.
“Some Americans can afford to skip the lines of bureaucracy. They hire private agents to secure a new passport or a marriage certificate. The poor pay with their time.”
“It goes unremarked that here, in a shelter with a $9 million budget, operated by an agency with more than a hundred times those funds, the plumbing has fallen to an eleven-year-old girl.”
This book reminds me of Casey Gerald’s TEDx Talk and memoir, There Will Be No Miracles Here. When our economic and democratic systems break down traditional systems of community and belonging, the bureaucratic and politicized systems we use to replace them fall short, painfully short. The void is glaring if we care to look. As Gerald puts it, “There must be a better way.”
I’m unsure of the solution, but there are places to start. For example, when forces are at play to break up families in order to “protect children” which results in financial costs of about $60,000 per child annually, wouldn’t there be more cost-effective ways of keeping a family of five intact? This would be better for the children and would make more economic sense. Put more simply, as we should to every large bureaucratic system, "What are we incentivizing, exactly?"
This is certainly not a critique of the many wonderful families who foster or work within this system with love and care for children. I admire them deeply. Many are heroes in Dasani's story. Again, this is complicated.
Read the story of Dasani. You’ll be left wanting, hoping, for a better way.
“There can be no more important subject from the standpoint of a nation. Because when you take care of the children, you are taking care of the nation of tomorrow.”
– President Theodore Roosevelt at the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children
This was the question guiding Andrea Elliott as she embarked on an eight-year journalism journey that would earn her the Pulitzer Prize, an award she deserves.
I’ve long believed that stories help us understand life's nuance and complexities far better than statistics or academic theories. Stories meet us where we are in ways facts simply cannot. Elliott shares the harsh realities and failures of an impossible system stewarded, in many cases, by good-hearted individuals who hope their diligence will make up for the system's flaws. This is a deeply complicated system surrounded by politically charged laws that have evolved and mutated over time, built on the foundations of racism and economic inequalities. But Elliot navigates this nasty bureaucratic web through the eyes of a child, Dasani. Elliott reaches for a thread that we can all agree with: we should lessen the suffering of innocent children.
It is through story, specifically Dasani’s story, that we break through the politically charged statements and settle on one innocent, yet invisible, child’s experience. A story leading to succinct realities that can alarm those on either side of the political spectrum:
“The unspoken message is clear. In order to leave poverty, Dasani must also leave her family.”
A story that can criticize the system while honoring those who show up and fight for children and families in the system.
“There is no right answer. Such is the paradox of ‘social work,’ two words that merge awkwardly at best.”
A story that gives the statistics a real face, like learning about Dasani’s great grandfather, a veteran struggling to make ends meet, then reading statistics that could have come straight out of The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.
“Out of nearly 71,000 mortgages insured by the GI Bill in New York and Northeastern New Jersey in 1950, less than 1 percent went to nonwhite veterans.”
Elliot does her best to help us feel the real pains of a failing system through the eyes of one family. Her words are poignant.
“Some Americans can afford to skip the lines of bureaucracy. They hire private agents to secure a new passport or a marriage certificate. The poor pay with their time.”
“It goes unremarked that here, in a shelter with a $9 million budget, operated by an agency with more than a hundred times those funds, the plumbing has fallen to an eleven-year-old girl.”
This book reminds me of Casey Gerald’s TEDx Talk and memoir, There Will Be No Miracles Here. When our economic and democratic systems break down traditional systems of community and belonging, the bureaucratic and politicized systems we use to replace them fall short, painfully short. The void is glaring if we care to look. As Gerald puts it, “There must be a better way.”
I’m unsure of the solution, but there are places to start. For example, when forces are at play to break up families in order to “protect children” which results in financial costs of about $60,000 per child annually, wouldn’t there be more cost-effective ways of keeping a family of five intact? This would be better for the children and would make more economic sense. Put more simply, as we should to every large bureaucratic system, "What are we incentivizing, exactly?"
This is certainly not a critique of the many wonderful families who foster or work within this system with love and care for children. I admire them deeply. Many are heroes in Dasani's story. Again, this is complicated.
Read the story of Dasani. You’ll be left wanting, hoping, for a better way.
“There can be no more important subject from the standpoint of a nation. Because when you take care of the children, you are taking care of the nation of tomorrow.”
– President Theodore Roosevelt at the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children
lilyreads01's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Addiction, Mental illness, and Child abuse
bg_oseman_fan's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
This book was an intensive look at poverty through the lense of one family. there was a lot of info that a was not aware of. the reporting done blended info and pathos very well. the way policy from government officials interacts with people on the human level was vital to have laid out.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Bullying, and Drug use
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Racism
Minor: Abandonment, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Violence, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Police brutality
duckduckem's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
allthingstajah's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
jslive's review against another edition
5.0
"Invisible child" by Andrea Elliott is an amazing piece of journalism and storytelling. Never dull despite its 600+ page length, obviously political but not too pedantic, devastating but not depressing.
bethalow's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic and bitter story of poverty and class system discrimination.