There are no children here - If I grow up"If I grow up, I would like to be a bus driver." If... not when. Sentiments like this echo eerily through the pages of Alex Kotlowitz's account of his two-year documentation of the lives of two brothers, Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers. The boys are afforded little happiness and too much pain, trying to survive day after day in their apartment in the crime-plagued Henry Horner Homes apartment complex on the outskirts of Chicago. When Kotlowitz approached the boys' mother, LaJoe, about writing the book about her sons, she agreed with him, but felt the need to make it clear. "But you know, there are no children here. They've seen too much to be children," LaJoe told Kotlowitz. Lajoe moved to Horner when she was a young girl with her thirteen-year-old family. The family lived in an apartment above a church that did not have adequate heating and organ music often blared from the church below. Learning about the new public housing projects for financially disadvantaged families, LaJoe's parents packed their bags and moved into one of the new buildings. When the family first arrived at their new home, they couldn't believe their eyes. It looked like a palace. Outside there were yellow flowers and street lamps. The exterior of the building was made of sturdy dark red brick. Inside, the walls were pristine white, with shiny linoleum floors. A new range and refrigerator waited in the kitchen. It seemed like a dream to them, until everything collapsed. One of Lajoe's sisters was found strangled in the family bathtub. Then, after hearing the news of his sister's death, one of Lajoe's brothers had a heart attack and died. LaJoe's parents packed their bags early... middle of paper... singing about suing her husband for child support with someone. As for the analysis of the book itself, although the author aims to chronicle two years in the lives of the two brothers, he ends up writing more about their mother. He discusses LaJoe's parents, how they met and married, and why they moved to Horner. She describes LaJoe as an extremely kind but tenacious woman, who will do anything to help not only her own family, but also all the children in the neighborhood. LaJoe feeds and cares for many neighborhood children. This is why she is rare and special in an environment of black mothers, prostitutes and drug addicts. She stands by her children when most mothers would be ashamed and disown them. I finished this book feeling great respect and admiration for LaJoe and everything he experienced.