Fire in the Ashes

   In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his prize-winning booksRachel and Her ChildrenandAmazing Grace, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood.    For nearly fifty years, Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage...
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   In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his prize-winning booksRachel and Her ChildrenandAmazing Grace, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood.

   For nearly fifty years, Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation.  A winner of the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and countless other honors, he has persistently crossed the lines of class and race, first as a teacher, then as the author of tender and heart-breaking books about the children he has called “the outcasts of our nation’s ingenuity.”  But Jonathan is not a distant and detached reporter.  His own life has been radically transformed by the children who have trusted and befriended him.

   Never has this intimate acquaintance with his subjects been more apparent, or more stirring, than inFire in the Ashes, as Jonathan tells the stories of young men and women who have come of age in one of the most destitute communities of the United States.  Some of them never do recover from the battering they undergo in their early years, but many more battle back with fierce and, often, jubilant determination to overcome the formidable obstacles they face.  As we watch these glorious children grow into the fullness of a healthy and contributive maturity, they ignite a flame of hope, not only for themselves, but for our society.

   Education and politics, and the pressing issues that confront our public schools, are interwoven through the stories of these children.  Why many children do succeed, graduate from high school, go on to college, and do well in higher education -- while others don’t survive the secondary grades, lose their hopes and motivation in their years of adolescence, and never finish high school -- lies at the essence of this work.

   Jonathan Kozol is the author ofDeath at an Early Age, Savage Inequalities, and other books on children and their education.  He has been called “today’s most eloquent spokesman for America’s disenfranchised.”  But he believes young people speak most eloquently for themselves; and in this book, so full of the vitality and spontaneity of youth, we hear their testimony.