Invisible Child

 

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not only is this a stellar piece of journalistic writing, it is a heartbreaking, breathtaking, head shaking story. This is a long book because it covers the life of Dasani 2012-2021, a homeless child in New York. Not everything goes the way you would expect. There are some fabulous breaks that happen for Dasani--a loving family, some very interested teachers and social workers, programs and allowances-There are also some very unfortunate circumstances that are caused by her family, the government, and the nature of being homeless and Black. Elliott does such a good job of painting this girl, and her family, that you almost think it could be fiction. That it is not shows both Elliott's journalistic integrity and the complexities of what causes the problems many homeless families face. It is not just drugs. It is not just the courts. It is not just Black culture (being from the "hood" and the stigma of being "too white"). It is not just being a system that is overworked and underpaid. It is all these things and more and Eliott provides one of the first steps in fighting back: acknowledging the problems and helping us have compassion and understanding.

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"I don't dream at all," Dasani says.  "Even when I try."

Society's answer to poverty, time nd again, was to separate children from their families.

working hard allows the brain to "grow' by strengthening its neural connections.  If they labor over a math problem, even with frustrations, their brains are getting "stronger', says Dweck.  This makes struggle a good thing--not a sign of stupidity but a path to intellect.

The word "understand" comes from Old English--understandan.  Literally, it means "to stand in the midst of".  It does not mean we have reached some ultimate truth.  It means, to my mind, that we have experienced enough of something formerly unseen, to be provoked, humbled, awakened, or even changed by it.  If I did anything in my eight years with Dasani, it was to stand in the midst of her life.