Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City Pdf Summary
The riveting, unforgettable story of a girl whose indomitable spirit is tested by homelessness, poverty, and racism in an unequal America—from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliott of The New York Times
Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolize Brooklyn’s gentrification and the shared aspirations of a divided city. As Dasani grows up, moving with her tight-knit family from shelter to shelter, this story goes back to trace the passage of Dasani’s ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north. By the time Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis is exploding as the chasm deepens between rich and poor.
In the shadows of this new Gilded Age, Dasani must lead her seven siblings through a thicket of problems: hunger, parental drug addiction, violence, housing instability, segregated schools, and the constant monitoring of the child-protection system. When, at age thirteen, Dasani enrolls at a boarding school in Pennsylvania, her loyalties are tested like never before. As she learns to “code switch” between the culture she left behind and the norms of her new town, Dasani starts to feel like a stranger in both places. Ultimately, she faces an impossible question: What if leaving poverty means abandoning the family you love?
By turns heartbreaking and revelatory, provocative and inspiring, Invisible Child tells an astonishing story about the power of resilience, the importance of family, and the cost of inequality. Based on nearly a decade of reporting, this book vividly illuminates some of the most critical issues in contemporary America through the life of one remarkable girl.
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Invisible Child: Poverty Survival & Hope in an American City Review
4.0 out of 5 stars Only one question remains
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 15, 2022
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This book is alive with humanity. It is alternatively heart-breaking, frustrating, and infuriating. The story of one brilliant child and her family shredded by a system that was intended to protect the poor is not new, but this iteration includes a look at the importance of a mother’s love. Connection matters.
The poor will always be part of society. Even the most ” successful ” socialist countries have ” the least of these. ” The question remains: What are we willing to change? We know what doesn’t work, so where are the new ideas that will actually make a difference for those families desperately trying to hold it all together?
5.0 out of 5 stars An Exposé on Systemic Racism
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 9, 2021
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This book review is for; ‘Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City’; by Andrea Elliott. // Its publication or release date was October 5, 2021; and it showed up on my doorstep on the same day, having pre-ordered it from Amazon; and while I’ve written book reviews before on Amazon, this review is a first of its kind in that I’m submitting this review prior to completing the book. // I was highly motivated to buy the hardcover of this book, and two others, all of which share a somewhat similar theme about ‘Critical Race Theory’ and ‘Systemic Racism’. Two things in particular, motivated me; 1) since both of these culturally sensitive topics are currently being hotly contested, specifically in relation to their validity or the lack thereof, I’ve decided to do my own research on these topics, in order to purposely cut out all the static, noise, and vitriol, from those adamantly against these two topics getting a fair hearing by all those like myself who care and want to educate themselves on these crucial issues, especially during these turbulent times when so called ‘American Patriots’ honestly think that loyally serving their country equals getting involved in an ‘Insurrection’ and/or ‘Domestic Terrorism’; or who hold so called sincere sympathies with those who were involved in the highly questionable behavior in and around the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2021; and, 2) the second motivation to purchase this book was found within just one paragraph within a recent (9-28/10-1-2021) New York Times article, titled: ‘When Dasani Left Home’, which was written by this book’s author (Andrea Elliott), which singular paragraph in its entirety is quoted as follows: “Dasani’s roots in Fort Greene (Brooklyn, N.Y.) reached back four generations, to her great-grandfather Wesley Sykes, who left North Carolina to fight in Italy with the Army’s segregated all-Black regiment, the Buffalo Soldiers. After returning home in 1945 as a triple Bronze Service Star veteran, Sykes married and migrated north to Brooklyn, where it was nearly impossible for a Black family to get a mortgage. While the G.I. Bill lifted millions of white veterans into the middle class – helping them go to college, start businesses and become homeowners – Black veterans were largely excluded. Sykes, who was trained in the Army as a mechanic, wound up mopping floors and pouring concrete in Brooklyn, working more than 30 low-wage jobs. He and his wife, Margaret, settled for a rent-subsidized apartment in Fort Greene Houses, the complex Dasani would come to know as ‘the projects’.” // Having finished this quoted paragraph, I ask the reader of this review to carefully read the above quoted paragraph a second time to purposely try to discover all the myriad ways in which Systemic Racism is being exposed and described therein. // My simple proposition is as follows: If racism is indeed a long standing problem in America; then it stands to reason, that the first step toward finding substantial solutions to eradicate or at least mitigate the destructive consequences of same, would be to inform and educate ourselves about the twin topical issues – Critical Race Theory and Systemic Racism – of our current socially and politically turbulent American culture. // In my limited opinion, this book, ‘Invisible Child’, has more to do with Systemic Racism, than Critical Race Theory, particularly in the form of an exposé which expertly serves to highlight the destructive multi-generational effects of Systemic Racism; and to that point, before closing this review, I would like to recommend two very good books dealing directly with Critical Race Theory, as follows: 1) ‘Critical Race Theory: An Introduction’; by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic; 3rd Edition; Copyright 2017; New York University Press; and, 2) ‘Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed The Movement’; Foreword by, Cornel West; Edited by, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas; Copyright 1995; The New Press, New York; ISBN 978-1-56584-270-0 (hc.); ISBN 978-1-56584-271-7 (pbk.).
Rachel Y. Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking but incredibly informative; Read it if you dare
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 16, 2022
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This is simply an astonishing “read.” And it is not fiction. It is almost painful to make ones way through these pages to see the damage parents can do to children, and the effects of poverty on all of them, including those parents who can’t seem to make their way out. It’s painful to see how hard government agencies have tried to tackle these problems to find solutions, and to discover how utterly illusive these efforts can be. Release any stereotypical ideas you have about the topics covered in this book.
About Andrea Elliott Author of Invisible Child: Poverty Survival & Hope in an American City Pdf Book
Andrea Elliott the Author of Invisible Child: Poverty Survival & Hope in an American City Pdf Book. She is an investigative reporter for The New York Times and a former staff writer at The Miami Herald. Her reporting has been awarded a Pulitzer prize, a George Polk award, a Scripps Howard award, and prizes from the Overseas Press Club and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. She has served as an Emerson fellow at New America, a visiting journalist at the Russell Sage Foundation, a visiting scholar at the Columbia Population Research Center, and is the recipient of a Whiting Foundation grant. In 2015, she received Columbia University’s Medal for Excellence, given to one alumnus or alumna under the age of forty-five. She lives in New York City. This is her first book.
Invisible Child: Poverty Survival & Hope in an American City pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- Publisher : Random House (October 5, 2021)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 624 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0812986946
- ISBN-13 : 978-0812986945
- Item Weight : 1.95 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.43 x 1.34 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #28,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20 in Poverty
- #33 in Sociology of Class
- #128 in Black & African American Biographies
- Customer Reviews: 4.7 out of 5 stars 1,616 ratings
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