9780807044032

Your Satisfaction is Guaranteed:

• 30 Day Return Policy
• Bookseller Guarantee
• Privacy & Security Policy

A Kind and Just Parent gives us a transformative view of kids caught up in the justice system that we could never get from nightly news and newspaper stories. William Ayers has spent five years as teacher and observer in Chicago's Juvenile Court prison, the nation's first and largest institution of juvenile justice, founded by legendary reformer Jane Addams to act as a "kind and just parent" for kids in need. Today, immensely confused and confusing, it serves as a perfect microcosm of the way American justice deals with children. The book follows a year in the life of the prison school. Its characters are three-dimensional: funny, quirky, sometimes violent, and often vulnerable. We see young people talking about their lives, analyzing their own situations, and thinking about their friends and their futures. We watch them throughout a school year and meet some remarkable teachers. From the intimate perspective of a teacher, Ayers gives us portraits, history, and analysis that help us to understand not only what brought these kids into the court system, but why people find it hard to think straight about them, and what we might do to keep their younger brothers and sisters from landing in the same place.

"A sympathetic, revealing portrait of young people caught up in the juvenile justice system, and a searing indictment of the society that has failed to nurture them....When Ayers allows the youths to speak for themselves, they emerge as vulnerable and likeable, despite their often heinous crimes. Their teachers too are, for the most part, caring, talented professionals who believe in their students' potential to turn their lives around. But the likelihood that few will do so is deeply unsettling. Likely to challenge many of our preconceptions, this is a graceful and passionate vision of the criminal justice system."

Studs Terkel

"William Ayers...joins a fine tradition of Chicago writers whose goal is to bring to life the complex people who inhabit myths conjured up by demagogues and the mass media."

Luis J. Rodriguez

A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court: Search Results