["Being With Children"] is about two things: the world of P.S. 90, and how Lopate worked to release the "creative voice" of the children of P.S. 90. What emerges is a wise and tender portrait of a small society, as well as some extraordinary writing about the mystery and beauty of human communications as Phillip Lopate 1943– © Thomas Victor 1984they are made manifest between a teacher and his students, as well as the most exhilarating sense, finally, of how stubbornly people of all ages struggle to remain human in a time of cultural dissolution—and of what vital, renewing, political importance that struggle is. (It is this last that is the glory of Lopate's book. The people. The 12- and 27- and 49-year-old people; the laughter, anxiety, foolishness, intelligence and tender character of all those people running around P.S. 90, every day becoming themselves even as the world is...