Published: October 1, 1995

Knocking On Heaven's Door

Over the course of a year, beginning in the summer of 1993, Jonathan Kozol made regular visits to a neighborhood in the South Bronx known as Mott Haven, one of the nation's poorest. Two-thirds of the local residents are Hispanic, one-third black. Thirty-five percent are children. Drug abuse, AIDS, murder, life-consuming fire are part of everyday life. In his new book, Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation, Kozol, with sparing eloquence, lets the people themselves--the children, parents, teachers, and pastors--tell their own stories. Here, in an excerpt, he visits a local elementary school, P.S. 65, where only seven of 800 children do not qualify for free lunches. "Five of those seven,'' the principal tells Kozol, "get reduced-price lunches because they are classified as only 'poor,' not destitute.''

"What are these holes in our window?'' asks a 4th grade teacher at P.S. 65 in a rapid drill that, I imagine, few of those who read this will recall from their...