Kozol's book [Death at an Early Age] is an insider's wholly personal cry of outrage and pain at the things he saw done to Negro children in the schools where he taught. He is in no sense objective; though truthful, he is hardly even fair. He is not concerned … to give the devil his due, but only to show what the devils are doing. (p. 5)

It is a tale of unrelieved, and almost unbelievable, callousness and cruelty….

One asks oneself "Are these horrors true? Have indignation and resentment made Kozol exaggerate or distort what really happened? Is he a credible witness?" There is no doubt that he is. The schools call him a troublemaker, but the charge is absurd. It is clear that he leaned over backwards, to what he himself admits was a shameful degree, to stay out of trouble with the authorities and to do what...