Introduction
The author of the book “ There are no Children Here ” Alex Kotlowitz was a freelance journalist. A friend approached him in the year 1985 and asked him to write a text for a photo essay he was preparing on children that lived in poverty for a magazine in Chicago. It was then that he met the Rivers brothers, Lafeyette who was 10 and Pharoah that was 7.
Lafeyette had an impact on Kotlowitz after a few hours of the interview in relation to the photo essay. Lafeyette said he would love to be a bus driver when he grew up when asked by Kotlowitz. The response implied that at the age of ten, the child was not sure that he would make it to adulthood because the response was “If I grow up”. Kotlowitz in the year 1988 shared his idea of writing a book about the two boys and other children to the mother of the two boys. LaJoe liked the idea but then stated, “But you know, there are no children here because they have seen too much for them to be children” (Kotlowitz, 1991). Alex Kotlowitz thus entitled the book There Are No Children Here.
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Critique
The principal aim of the author in the book is to express and show the kind of life young children in poverty go through on a daily basis. It is a story of two brothers Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers that live in the Chicago ghetto. The book does well to show the horrors of growing up in a housing project that is poorly maintained and tyrannized by drug-dealing gangs characterised by frequent and consistent shootings and murders. Lafayette struggles to cope by having his emotions stifled and turning himself into an automaton while his brother Pharoah excels at school as his way out.
Handling Stress
The book has a number of characters that hold their stress inside. For instance, Pharoah greatly suffers from his stress and the events and gangs that happen in the Horner area makes him lose trust in almost every person around him. Pharoah has a lost a great deal of people that he refuses to get attached to anyone for fear that they would eventually leave. The result of holding his stress is that it holds him back and not share his thoughts and problems that allows stress to build up in him.
Pharoah is a stutter and its gets worse with the worsening of the violence around him. It becomes even more stressful because he is a brilliant student and thus all people rest their hope on him and give him a lot of responsibility. The combination of the two makes Pharoah uncertain of himself and sometimes makes him lack concentration in school because of the stress. The stress and effect it has on him has been depicted in the book when the teacher calls his mother and says “Pharoah has been day dreaming a lot in class” (Kotlowitz, 1991).
Pharoah is childlike in the beginning of the book, fearing gangs and gunshots and distances himself from an ounce of violence opting to run and hide as compared to defending himself (Kotlowitz, 1991). He puts all is efforts and energies into education as he matures up and feels successful and confident in this arena seeing a way out of poverty. Lafayette is different as he mingles and accepts the hard life becoming stiff in emotion and rigid in character. In the end, Lafayette remains with no way out as he is trapped in the life, but Pharoah is able to envision a life beyond what he has been accustomed to since childhood. Kotlowitz does not editorialize the book and this is good because it allows the readers to draw conclusions for themselves especially in the scenes of fear and violence.
Dealing with Death
It is observed that the Rivers family deals with death in a manner suggesting that all confine their emotions. The family members do not talk about the death because of the fear that gangs might be hearing. The members bottle up their emotions and feelings and lack a sense of community because they fail to console one another. The stutter in Pharoah worsens and Lafayette expresses less and less emotion because he feels he must be strong for both his brother Lafayette and the triplets.
Effective Crisis Management
The book shows the family demonstrate effective management of crisis. It becomes clear when Pharoah and his Dede, his cousing walk towards a shopping strip on Pharoah’s birthday and a shooting breaks out. Despite his age, Pharoah, twlve years at the time, handles the situation very well. He tells his 9 year old cousing to keep his head down and waiting until the shooting stops. Gang shootings have been mentioned a number of times in the text and the family pushes through despite them being traumatic experiences and continue their days like nothing happened on the previous ones. It is an indication that the Rivers family have become accustomed to daily violence that is a result of living in Horner and act to deal with the violence by going on with their lives and working through the poverty-associated trials.
Lack of money is another thing that plagues LaJoe throughout the course of the book. LaJoe is pressured to put food on the table and clothe her children and herself worries her although she manages. Chapter 15 of the book thoroughly describe her grocery shopping insisting that she gets by with food stamps and benefits. The reaction of Pharoah to the idea of his mother being off welfare is another example of him coping under stress. He quickly asks for an aopology just after asking his mother for money because he realizes that he was not thoughtful in his demand and understands that money needs to be conserved. The family suffers from extreme poverty but somehow manage to survive and live through.
Effect of Neighbourhood and Community on Children
The book shows how the community and neighbourhood affect children and the growing up of the same. For instance, in “There are no Children Here”, Terence goes into gangs, people die a lot because of gangs and violence and the stadium next to Henry Horner conflicts. All these mark characteristics of the community that comes from a big family living in a poor neighbourhood with gangs and drugs and where both parents lack a proper education.
Effect of Family
The book shows that the family centeredness has an influence on the upbringing of a child and as can be seen with the Rivers family, LaJoe tries so much to keep her children away from gangs. She also keeps a father in the lives of her boys and depends a lot on the two boys. The families value their children and wish them a good education and as such they work very hard to provide for their children what they never had.
“ There Are No Children Here” does well to employ expressionism and real life events to detail of the horrific lives those children live in harsh and poor environments. The book correlates with the health issues and more so the mental health problems that persons undergo. The children are mentally strained to grow up before their time and struggle with the mental trauma of having to witness chaos after chaos on a daily basis. Poverty, lack of proper nutrition makes it almost impossible for the children to grow a healthy life and reduces their cognitive ability.
Conclusion
The book “There Are No Children Here” details of the horrors of children growing up in poverty in the ghetto of Chicago. It is a book centred around two boys, Lafeyette and Pharoah. Similar to what transpires in the real world domain, the two boys struggle in the same conditions but each takes a different path because of their individual personalities and desires. One sees the life as a problem and wishes to find a way out of it while the other observes the struggle and strives to adapt to it.
References
Kotlowitz, A. (1991). There are no children here: The story of two boys growing up in the other America. Anchor.
