There are no children here - A reason to hope The west side of Chicago, Harlem, Watts, Roxbury and Detroit. What do all these areas have in common? These areas, along with many others, have become minefields for explosive issues of race, values, and community responsibility, driven by the plight of the urban underclass. Issues such as violent crime, social separation, welfare dependency, drug wars, and unemployment all play an important role in the difficult life of America's inner cities. Alex Kotlowitz's book: There Are No Children Here, addresses the devastated urban life of America; a very painful issue in America. Kotlowitz traces the lives of two black boys; LaFayette, 10, and Pharoah, 7, as they struggle to beat the odds of growing up in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Their family includes a welfare-dependent mother, an alcoholic father, an older sister, an older brother and younger triplets. Kotlowoitz describes the horrors of a poorly managed apartment complex, completely taken over by gangs, where murders and shootings are commonplace. Kotlowitz does an excellent job of portraying ghetto life; those who are outside the American dream. He manages to put a face to the people trapped in housing estates with virtually no hope of escape. You can really feel a sense of great loss for the family, and so much hope for the two young boys. You can really feel the hope that things will work out for them and you can really feel like you know these young people on a personal level. Kotlowotz spent a lot of time with the kids so he could portray the world from the eyes of a child growing up in the ghetto, and he does an amazing job. Throughout their lives Pharoah and LaFayette are surrounded by violence and poverty. Their neighborhood had no banks, no public libraries, no movie theaters, no skating rinks or bowling alleys. Drug abuse was so rampant that drug lords literally set up shop in an abandoned building in the projects and shootings were everywhere. Furthermore, there were no drug rehabilitation programs or centers to help combat the problem. The police feared entering the ghetto for fear of their own safety. The book follows Pharoah and LaFayette over the course of a two-year period as they struggle with school, attempt to resist the lure of gangs, mourn the deaths of close friends, and still find the courage to seek the quiet inner peace that most part of the people consider. for granted.