Kozol's intention [in "Death at an Early Age"] was to write an angry, shocking polemic, and he has succeeded…. Whatever its effects on the Boston public-school system (so far they appear to be nonexistent), I expect that "Death at an Early Age" will be read in the future, as [Charles Dickens's] "Nicholas Nickleby" is now, by those whose habit it is to look back in wonder at the barbarisms of past civilizations. (p. 166)

Nat Hentoff, "The Most Deadly Sin," in The New Yorker (© 1968 by The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.), Vol. XLIV, No. 4, March 16, 1968, pp. 166-68.∗