Showing results for "Alex" in Children's Studies

This national best-seller chronicles the true story of two brothers coming of age in the Henry Horner public housing complex in Chicago. Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers are 11 and nine years old when the story begins in the summer of 1987. Living with their mother and six siblings, they struggle against grinding poverty, gun violence, gang influences, overzealous police officers, and overburdened and neglectful bureaucracies. Immersed in their lives for two years, Kotlowitz brings us this classic rendering of growing up poor in America’s cities.

Before Their Crimes: Childhood Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Surprising Journey to Adult Healing is a groundbreaking book that sheds new light on the relationship of childhood trauma and juvenile crime. Wendy Smith uses the framework of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to explain how the toxic stress of early childhood trauma can make children vulnerable to committing criminal acts. Smith draws from interviews with twenty men and women from across the racial and social divide who spent years in prison after committing serious crimes as children.