Amazing Grace by kozol

In Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol writes about the harsh living conditions that the people in the Bronx must face daily. When I first read Amazing Grace, I was appalled. I was shocked at the reality of the people’s lives and at the fact that I was not aware of such harsh realities. I had a hard time believing that such harsh living conditions existed in the United States.
One of the saddest aspects of this book is that the children are constantly surrounded by death, sickness and drugs. Many of them live with grandmothers or other family members because their own parents are dead, in prison or too drug-addicted to care for them. When drug dealers are the only ones with some money in the neighborhood, who else do these children have to look up to, even if they know it is wrong? Kozol points out the lack for role models and ambition - “Many of the ambitions of the children are locked-in at a level that suburban kids would scorn. It’s as if the very possibilities of life have been...