Published: May 1, 1996

Books

Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America , by Geoffrey Canada. (Beacon, $20.)

The Air Down Here: True Tales From a South Bronx Boyhood , by Gil C. Alicea with Carmine DeSena. (Chronicle Books, $14.95.)

In these two autobiographical accounts about growing up in the South Bronx, school is generally relegated to the background, scenery against which the turmoil of everyday life is played out. It's not so much that school is bad but rather that it's ineffective at quelling the threat of violence and, hence, unworthy of much respect. "When children feel that adults cannot or will not protect them, they devise ways of protecting themselves," writes Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Rheelen Centers for Children and Families in New York City. "School is too often the child's learning ground about the impotence of adult authority when...