Children who live in horrible conditions deserve extraordinary help

The author builds his case carefully before revealing this theme, but once he has come out with the idea, he repeats it in several different ways. First, Kozol introduces readers to the bright, cute, precocious children who are clearly victims of an uncaring world. Kozol takes pains to show their innocent acceptance of war zone type surroundings, street violence, drugs and even "germ warfare" visited on them by plumbing disasters and factory runoff. He paints a clear picture of their world; these kids live in dangerous, filthy, nightmarish conditions where most middle class people would not survive a single day.

Next, Kozol takes us into the deeply disappointing schools where they have to try to concentrate even when inferior health care has left them with dental pain or the shakes, and when they can't even get their one full meal...