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| Our America: Life And Death On The South Side Of Chicago | 
| Authors: Lealan Jones, Lloyd Newman
Creator: David Isay
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $11.35
You Save: $4.60 (29%)
New (13) from $11.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 253176
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 0.5
ISBN: 0684870444
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.0977311
EAN: 9780684870441
ASIN: 0684870444
Publication Date: April 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
This heartbreaking and inspiring book goes a long way toward fulfilling the wish one of its authors, LeAlan Jones, makes in his epigraph: "You must learn our America as we must learn your America, so that, maybe, someday, we can become one." Based on hours and hours of taped interviews that Jones and Lloyd Newman, two high school students, conducted for two National Public Radio documentaries they prepared in 1993 and 1995, Our America is a no-holds-barred look at the devastatingly poor Chicago neighborhood in which they live. It's a world where elementary school students learn about sex and drugs before they learn how to read, and where many boys do not expect to live to be 20. You finish the book marveling not that so many of those who people it are trapped, but wondering that anyone survives at all.
Product Description
Through two award-winning National Public Radio documentaries, and now thispowerful book, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman have made it their mission to be loud voices from one of this country's darkest places, Chicago's Ida B. Wells housing project. Set against the stunning photographs of a talented young photographer from the projects, Our America evokes the unforgiving world of these two amazing young men, and their struggle to survive unrelenting tragedy. With a gift for clear-eyed journalism, they tell their own stories and others, including that of the death of Eric Morse, a five-year-old who was dropped to his death from the fourteenth floor of an Ida B. Wells apartment building by two other little boys.Sometimes funny, often painful, but always charged with their dream of Our America, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman reach out to grab your attention and break your heart.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 Our America in the classroom May 14, 2008
Our America is a book begging to be shared. It is not a quiet or introspective read. It is an in-your-face, honest tale in the voice of two young teens who are wise beyond their years. Without question, it is the best book that I teach to my freshman level English class in terms of student engagement. It challenges prior knowledge, stereotypes, and opinions and broadens a student's sense of self and the world around him. Compiled from hundreds of hours of audio footage, the book captures two radio documentaries ("Ghetto Life 101" and "Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse") paired along additional footage. LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman have honest and open voices that allow the reader to enter their world.
 great book May 20, 2007
...for use in the classroom on diversity, cultural difference, and endurance over challenges in a person's environment.
Our America February 15, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Our America, a book by two young boys from a housing project on the South Side of Chicago, is raw and beautiful all at once. It tells the story of the authors, LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, as they make their way in the Ida B. Well's housing project and tell the story of a five year-old's death from one of the buildings. The book, which was written by the boys in collaboration with author David Isay, is part journalism, part activism and part reflection. It takes a very factual look at the events of the child's death, there are transcriptions from interviews, and there are their own ramblings and editorializing about what's going on in their part of the country.
The boys become involved simply by bringing their notebooks, pens, tape recorders, cameras (and their instincts) to their own neighborhood. Interview subjects include teachers, young children, cousins, neighbors, the chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority, police officers and lawyers. Their approach is direct and simple - they ask the tough questions of the people in charge. For example, Lloyd asks the CHA chairman, "Would you want your kids growing up in these public houses?" With the help of David Isay, LeAlan and Lloyd become the chroniclers of their particular time and place.
The book's readability level is low - at maximum, it's on a fifth grade level in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure. However, the themes and issues developed in the book are far more advanced. Students of any age level in high school should be able to grasp the content and then think critically about the issues it presents around racism, poverty, gang violence, family structure and public housing. It is a book aimed not only at young people but also the adults in power, the people who make the decisions that affect the poor.
Our America is not something to pick up for light Saturday afternoon reading, or to help you forget about the troubles of the world. Instead it's a book to crack open the minds of two young boys living an all-too-common reality, and face both the issues and the joys that they see every day. Its literary value is lesser than its cultural significance, one of the few books written by young African Americans and one of the few resources for genuine information about what their lives are like.
Our America is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, 1997.
This book is so sad. February 4, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
We read this book in school and I felt really bad for the kids. I don't know what I would have done if something like that happened to someone I know.
I related to this book because I live close to this neighborhood, but I feel lucky that my life is so much better.
South Side Chicago- Pocket Books-1997 January 29, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This telling account of life on the south side of Chicago is worth reading to catch a glimpse of the struggles and hardships that marginalize this south side community. The narrative and accounts of life in Chicago's public housing complexes unveil the social conflict that is tucked away from viewing and ignored by outsiders.
To shed light on the situation, two teenagers, assigned by the National Public Radio, conduct interviews with family members, neighbors, and friends throughout the text. During the process of their interviews, they describe the everyday life and hopes of escaping the self destruction of those who must live in the projects especially Ida B. Wells public housing.
The book is a short read of two hundred pages with a reading level of sixth grade. Despite the simplicity of the layout of the accounts, the descriptions of urban city life and death are profound. Since the teenagers' interviews, some of the public housing complexes have been brought down. The south side of Chicago is beginning to prosper as new schools and businesses bring opportunity and hope to a community that seemed abandoned.
Whether you are a student, parent, or professional, reading this book will make you want to take action to rebuild our community.
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