About the Author:
Martha Shirk of Palo Alto, California, is an award-winning journalist, formerly with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , who specializes in children's and family issues. Neil G. Bennett is director of demographic research for the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. J. Lawrenece Aber is director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Martha Shirk of Palo Alto, California, is an award-winning journalist, formerly with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , who specializes in children's and family issues. Neil G. Bennett is director of demographic research for the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. J. Lawrenece Aber is director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Martha Shirk of Palo Alto, California, is an award-winning journalist, formerly with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , who specializes in children's and family issues. Neil G. Bennett is director of demographic research for the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. J. Lawrenece Aber is director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
Review:
"How can the world's wealthiest nation tolerate a higher percentage of our children living in poverty than any other industrial nation? Because poverty is statistics, not people. This book makes poverty come alive, prodding our collective dulled conscience." -- Sen. Paul Simon, Director, Public Policy Institute, Southern Illinois University
"The 'distorting polarities' of the debate on poverty - structural vs. personal causes-often remind one of the nature vs. nurture debate, obscuring the complexities of reality so richly described here. This book is wonderfully written, reading like a page-turning novel, drawing us into those whose 'lives are on the line' in a way that sharpens our policy vision and evokes a more lucid understanding of both existing and developing policies." -- Gary Stangler, President, American Public Human Services Association
"The writing is so good that even the chapter filled with statistics is easy to read. "Lives on Line" has the potential to alter the way many of its readers think about poor people living just a few miles away." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"This book does more than give statistics.... Readers will get the shocking details of life as many live it. The book is an eye-opener." -- Oklahoma City Oklahoman
"This is the book President Clinton and top decision-makers should carry in their beach bags this summer. An exquisitely reported look at the increasing numbers of Americans who hover on the edges of official poverty. We walk right past them every day-these tired house-cleaners and house-painters and fast-food workers-never seeing the complicated layers of hope and despair which Shirk uncovers. Critical context and explanation about the demographics of child poverty in the U.S. from the National Center on Children in Poverty make this a compelling, important book." -- Cathy Trost, Director, Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families
"With so many children growing up in poverty today, the ability to peer into the everyday lives of their families-to see their parents at work and at home-offers us a rare and invaluable window through which to observe what is happening to our nation's young. Lives on the Line gives us this essential perspective which few other publications have." -- Melissa Ludtke, editor, Nieman Reports; author of On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America
"[The authors] blend compelling personal profiles with engrossing statistics and analysis to create a vivid, disturbing picture of what daily life is like for the 13 million U.S. children growing up in poverty in the richest nation on earth. This is an important book that examines our most pressing social problems and dispels the fallacies that color public perception and government policy." -- San Jose Mercury News
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