Editorial Reviews:
In Lives on the Line, Martha Shirk, Neil G. Bennett, and J. Lawrence Aber meld affecting personal profiles with sophisticated demographic analysis to create a vivid portrait of what life is like for more than 14 million American children growing up below the poverty line.In personal profiles of ten families across the nation, from a Pacific Islander family in Hawaii to a homeless family in a wealthy New York City suburb, award-winning journalist Martha Shirk depicts the realities of life for children below the poverty line. She takes readers deep into the lives of families in poverty?lives sometimes marked by childhood abuse, parental loss, and long-term violence?and with each family explores their prospects for moving above the poverty threshold. Along the way, Shirk finds amazing resilience, resourcefulness, and strength of spirit in many of these poor families.Neil G. Bennett, demographic research director for the highly respected National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University (NCCP), shatters many commonly held stereotypes by analyzing Census Bureau data to show which American children are most likely to be poor. He reports, for instance, that over 60 percent of poor young children have at least one employed parent, that most poor young children live in suburban or rural areas, and that a parent?s graduation from high school is insufficient to insure against poverty. Among his most startling findings are that in the last two decades, the Young Child Poverty Rate grew significantly faster in the suburbs than in urban or rural areas, and that it grew much faster among whites than among blacks.J. Lawrence Aber, the director of NCCP and a nationally recognized expert in child development and social policy, describes the effects of poverty on child development and showcases proven strategies for preventing or reducing child poverty. He also shows us that it is in our national self-interest to address the problem of child poverty by making a smart investment in America?s future.As a powerful portrait of the effects of poverty on America?s children and families, Lives on the Line narrows the gap between ?them? and ?us.? It will change the way you think about the poor.
Customer Reviews:
 Heartbreaking and Inspiring
There are few books I've read over the past few years that have really stuck with me, and this is one of them. With the economy in a downturn, I find myself wondering what's happening to the families whose lives the authors tracked for a couple of years in the late 90s. The real-life families that are profiled here are truly memorable. Fans of "Nickel and Dimed" will like this book because it fills in a lot of the blanks about how poor families cope. The authors keep themselves out of their subjects' stories and basically let the families'words and actions demonstrate how difficult it is to live in poverty. I was inspired by the resourcefulness most of them bring to the challenge. Review from Publishers Weekly
Review From Publisher's Weekly - Almost half of the nation's children live in officially defined poverty or near-poverty. Putting a human face on this and other statistics, the authors present a disturbing and provocative composite portrait of 10 families struggling to make ends meet--four white, two Hispanic, three black and one Hawaiian/Samoan. Bennett and Aber, both directors of Columbia University's National Center for Children in Poverty, and freelance journalist Shirk (a veteran St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter), identify three factors--teen parenthood, low educational achievement and temporary or low-wage work--that they call "the `Bermuda Triangle' of family poverty." Add the associated risks of domestic violence, poor child care and damage to early brain development from malnutrition, preventable birth complications, environmental toxins, etc., and readers will begin to see why poverty cuts across urban, suburban and rural areas. A few of the parents profiled here battle drug addiction; one gambles; several suffer from disabling depression; one single mother bravely raises a severely disabled five-year-old son afflicted with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and a 234-pound, 12-year-old daughter. In almost all the profiled families, one or both parents work, contradicting the widespread stereotype of the poor as lazy or irresponsible. In a succinct closing chapter, the authors call for a combination of public- and private-sector measures to help prevent or reduce child poverty. The issues they raise should fuel election-year debate. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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