The story that jolted the conscience of the nation when it first appeared in The New Yorker

Jonathan Kozol is one of America’s most forceful and eloquent observers of the intersection of race, poverty, and education. His books, from the National Book Award–winning Death at an Early Age to his most recent, the critically acclaimed Shame of the Nation, are touchstones of the national conscience. First published in 1988 and based on the months the author spent among America’s homeless, Rachel and Her Children is an unforgettable record of the desperate voices of men, women, and especially children caught up in a nightmarish situation that tears at the hearts of readers. With record numbers of homeless children and adults flooding the nation’s shelters, Rachel and Her Children offers a look at homelessness that resonates even louder today.

“Kozol, today’s most eloquent spokesman for America’s disenfranchised, won a National Book Award for Death at an Early Age, and this new work is every bit as powerful. Reading it is a revelation…A searing trip into the heart of homelessness.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“A searing indictment of a society that has largely chosen to look the other way...One would need a heart of stone not to be moved.” —New York Times

“Jonathan’s struggle is noble. What he says must be heard. His outcry must shake our nation out of its guilty indifference.” —Elie Wiesel

“Among the many virtues of Jonathan Kozol’s strong and often beautiful books is that we cannot forget for even an instant that the poor are our own kind and live but a moment away.” —The Nation

“I haven’t experienced the same kind of shock over a book since the first time I read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.” —Chicago Tribune

“At a time when Americans are struggling to see through the political, racial, and economic walls that separate them, Jonathan Kozol comes along with a window. Like an Old Testament patriarch, he rages at what he calls the greed and ‘theological evil’ of our time.” —USA Today

“Extraordinarily affecting…A very important book. To read and remember the stories in this book, to take them to heart, is to be called as a witness.” –The Boston Globe

“A book that should be read by every middle class (and any class) American…pulls us, willingly or not, straight into the heart of what it means to be a homeless family in America.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Bitterly eloquent.” –Newsweek

“Compelling, moving, eloquent…An extended tour of Hell.” –Los Angeles Times

“Gripping desperate stories of more than a dozen families and their children…Kozol bears witness to their suffering and to the inhumanity of the system created to help them.” –The Atlanta Journal and Constitution