Great stories of juveniles and justice system in trouble.

books:


	• A Kind and Just Parent William Ayers Beacon Press, 1998 - 206 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Great stories of juveniles and justice system in trouble.

This is a story of children, real children, still soft inside, and yet with a force field that can put off both the kindest and the most brutal attacks one can inflict. It is a story of a justice system long gone amuck, but often with good intentions, and some surprisingly good people lighting up the corners. Ayers is a good tale-teller, and catches students at the juvenile detention "home" in Chicago - it could just as well be many other places - in moments of anger, despair, humor, joy, self-deception and learning, along with the teachers that carefully try to offer regularity, challenge and choice. For those many to whom juveniles and juvenile detention facilities are not real, this book is a must. For those who know, it will be a renewed inspiration and challenge. For those who want to look further than Ayers points at a the development of our justice system and really systemic changes in the way we handle wrongs, both adult and juvenile, a great place to start would be Howard Zehr's, _Changing Lenses: A New Focus on Crime and Justice_.

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This book is powerful, instructive, and brilliant.

Ayers book should be read by all educators who work with young people forgotten by the system. His case studies are brilliantly drawn and teach us a great deal about "juvenile justice". It has provoked discussion of poverty, violence, and social change. It has changed the thinking of many of my students for its clarity, insight, and hope.

Through brilliant storytelling, Ayers captures the lives and personalities of young people caught in the juvenile justice system and urges us to change the way we think about kids and crime.

"Ayers's book does for incarcerated kids . . . what Studs Terkel has done for the city's working folks, [and] what Alex Kotlowitz has done for the residents of its housing projects."

?Anthony Platt, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Based on his observations as a teacher in Chicago's Juvenile Court system, the nation's largest institution of juvenile justice. . . . The book offers a view of delinquent youths you won't see much of on the evening news."

?Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune
"Performs an extraordinary service . . . Ayers's unique contribution to the debate comes through the intimate dialogue of classroom encounters."

?Leslie Baldacci, Chicago Sun-Times
"Bill Ayers is a gifted writer and an acute observer of the inferno which we call the Juvenile Court. . . . A moving and intensely sympathetic account of the lives of both the adults and children caught in the sometimes hopeless maelstrom of our juvenile justice system. At every level, it is a book full of grace."

?Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent
"William Ayers is as sensitive and gifted a chronicler as he is a teacher."

?Studs Terkel

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