Review by Booklist Review
Sociologist and journalist Goyal (Schools on Trial, 2016) examines poverty's far-reaching effects on the lives and education of three Philadelphia students. Emmanuel, Ryan, and Giancarlos live in Kensington, once a robust Philadelphia industrial neighborhood capable of supporting a middle class, and now one of the city's poorest areas. Kensington's major commerce is Philadelphia's largest open-air illegal drug market. The three students' lives have been negatively affected by poor access to health care and food and housing insecurities since before they were born; poverty, violence, and instability are hallmarks of all aspects of their growing up. Under-resourced neighborhood schools have few tools besides unyielding (and ineffective) discipline to deal with the effects of students' traumatic daily lives, becoming the first step in the school-toprison pipeline. Charter schools, meanwhile, siphon off funding and will not help students dealing with the issues that plague Emmanuel, Ryan, and Giancarlos. Goyal's compelling writing and extensive research make this an excellent counterpart to Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America (2023) and the works of Jonathan Kozol.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Sociologist Goyal (Schools on Trial) delivers a nuanced and intimate portrayal of three Puerto Rican teens growing up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, drawing on a decade of research in the community to demonstrate how poverty is a barely surmountable obstacle for disadvantaged young people. Ryan Rivera, Giancarlos Rodriguez, and Emmanuel Coreano are students at El Centro de Estudiantes, an alternative school and "last chance" for the trio to avoid becoming high school dropouts. Goyal also profiles the boys' mothers, painting a generational picture of poverty's effects. (Ivette, Emmanuel's disabled single mother, receives only $10,000 a year in public assistance.) The need for money drives Ryan and Giancarlos to drug-dealing, while Emmanuel contends with unstable and unsafe housing. Their harrowing stories are enriched by closely observed details that will linger in the reader's mind, like Emmanuel's struggle to store his few prized items of clothing somewhere clean. While Goyal points to deindustrialization and a lack of good jobs, the war on drugs that unfairly targets people of color, and other causes of his subjects' poverty, he makes the case that direct government financial support is the best method to help impoverished young people, and laments the recent expiration of the pandemic-era child tax credit, of which the author was an architect. It's an enthralling and often maddening read. (Aug.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Policymaker and sociologist Goyal's (Schools on Trial) book is a grim but empathetic account of what deep poverty does to children and adults. The author digs deep into the coming-of age stories of three Puerto Rican boys: Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, each navigating their way around Kensington, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia, the country's poorest big city. Young people in Kensington have low odds of making it to their 18th birthdays. Faced with the wide availability of drugs, violence on the streets and at home, unstable living arrangements, and the near total absence of role models, the three boys eventually drop out of school and search for a stable and crime-free existence. Augmenting their stories are those of the boys' mothers, friends, teachers, and Ryan's and Giancarlos's pregnant girlfriends. Emmanuel, who is queer, is rejected and kicked out by his mother, forcing him to sleep at shelters. Eventually, all three boys enroll in an alternative school, which leads to improved chances of survival and opportunities. This book will likely make readers better understand the depths of poverty. VERDICT For non-academic audiences curious about and empathetic toward the deeply personal consequences of entrenched poverty.--Robert Beauregard
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A chronicle of three adolescents living in poverty in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood. In this follow-up to Schools on Trial, Goyal, a former senior policy adviser for Bernie Sanders, brings readers into the lives of Ryan, Emmanuel, and Giancarlo, students at the "alternative 'last chance' high school called El Centro de Estudiantes." Given his previous publications, and the school as the connection between his main subjects, readers might expect education to be the dominant theme. Instead, the author intertwines topics like truancy, school closures, dropouts, and nefarious for-profit programs for students with disciplinary issues with discussions of mental illness and the lack of treatment in impoverished communities, Philadelphia's many socioeconomic problems, the nomadic life that poverty often requires, and the particular challenges facing LGBTQ+ youth living in poverty. These are all important issues, and Goyal is an undeniably compassionate guide, but his cultural commentary doesn't quite address any one issue with enough depth. The author remains focused on the teens who make their way through El Centro, and their stories are powerful, both heartbreaking and checkered with hope. The personal narratives lend intimate context to numerous systemic issues, and the threads about Emmanuel are particularly original and memorable. However, Goyal does not offer a truly clear lens through which to understand his main characters' stories: Has El Centro saved them, allowed other schools to shirk their responsibilities, or served simply as a checked box? Perhaps the uncertainty of that answer is the point, but many readers may be left wanting more. One can expect that as his academic career matures and his research about and relationships with his subjects deepen, Goyal will be a forceful contributor to the work on many of the devastatingly and frustratingly intertwined topics he is only able to touch on in this book. A well-intentioned, straightforward narrative that teases the complexity of a series of societal issues. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
