There Are No Children Here

Who are the main characters of your book? Describe their personality and what seems to motivate them.


Some other flat characters mentioned in the book so far are:
Leonardo Anderson: Other wise know as Porkchop, he is a shy quiet boy, just a few years younger than Pharoah. He is another cousin of the boys and he and Pharoah have grown to become inseparable.
James Howard: A close friend and neighbor to Lafeyette, the two boys have grown up together in 'the projects'. He is an athletic, easygoing, energetic 12 year old boy who mischievous attitude is shown through his grin.
Dede: The boys' 9 year old cousin who likes to let loose and dance to L L Cool J rap
LaJoe: Layfeyette and Pharoah's mother, she is also 6 other children. She has to work had to support the family, considering her husband only lived at home from time to time.
Paul (sr.): The father af all 8 children and the husband of LaJoe. He isn't much of a romantic and he rarely sees any of his children.
LaShawn: The oldest child of LaJoe at the age of 20, she spent some time in the big house. She also dropped out of school to become a prostitute to pay for her excessive use of drugs.
Paul (jr.): Named after his father, he is LaJoe's second oldest kid, now the age of 19. He also dropped out of school and did time for a robbery in an Indian prison.
Terence: 17 years of age, he dropped out of school, did time in jail, and was LaJoe's biggest disappointment due to his selling and experimenting with drugs.
Timothy: First of the 4 year old triplets.
Tiffany: Another triplet, who resembles Tammie a lot.
Tammie: Another triplet, who resembles Tiffany a lot.

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There Are No Children Here

What are the major struggles and conflicts that your characters encounter? How do the characters face the conflicts and how does going through these conflicts help the characters to learn more about themselves?


The most vivid struggles Pharoah and Lafeyette had to over come in the novel There Are No children Here was the potentially deadly dangers of their poverty stricken neighborhood. In these ghettos numerous gangs were threts to the citizens of this poor area of Chicago, including the children. One day when Lafeyette and his 9 year old cousin Dede are outside a sudden fight between two gangs erupts, "Suddenly, gunfire erupted. The frightened children fell to the ground. 'Hold your head down!'" (Kotlowitz 9). The fact that these children cannot help but witness the brutal actions of the gangs is heart breaking, its not their falt that they were born into such harsh and brutal situations. However, through out the novel you see the children tempted by curupt actions, yet held back by their own self consience and by the guidence of thier mother, LaJoe, who had 'failed' some of her previous children and neglected when they got into drugs, and other illegal actions. "In the late 1960s the nation's black ghettoes were filled with rage and fury, a stark contrast to the resigationand personal excesses of the late 1980s" (Kotlowitz 162). This quote just shows to what extent the 'projects' where a bad place for children to grow up. Its very hard for me to imagine the struggle LaJoe and her family percervired through inorder to survive and be contenders in the economy. I personally think their environment was hardest conflict to over come and it built their up character but allowing them to expoerience things many adults have not.

Another major conflict for Pharoah and Lafeyette through out the novel is their recognition of the racial descrimination they will have to over come not only in the present but in the future as well. The whites in America were keepiong things very segregated at the time of this novel, and it was extreamly hard for blacks to overcome these barriers, regardless of their monetary status. Major role models for blacks, such as Malcom X, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. were being shut down and the government wasnt being fare at all. "White America seems intent on ignoring pleas for equality in the schools, in housing, and in health care. ...'Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate but unequal'" (Kotlowitz 162 & 163). The agnoledgement of the terible descrimination against blacks was neglected continuously, and for Pharoah and Lafeyette, it was very difficult for them to rise above it. They got in a few arguments with cops as they grew up, mainly because they were blacks, but we see the boys slowly but surely noticing the diffenet roles of blacks and whites in their point and time.

There Are No Children Here

How is this novel similar to other pieces of literature (poems, novels, films) that we have studied in class?


While reading There Are No Children Here, it reminded me of reading The Pearl my John Stienbeck in 8th grade. The Pearl is a short novel about a poor mexican family living in poverty in a bad neighborhood. They then find a large pearl in the ocean and ironically it brings them bad luck and terrible misfortune. The second part of the story isn't anything like There are no Children Here, but the setting is very similar. In the book I'm reading, the family is living in the the 'projects' of Chicago. This area used to be very nice and relativly wealthy, but then the middle-class blacks and whites moved away, leaving the area an undesireable living situation in poverty. Crime is a major problem for the family in TANCH, especially when it comes to their mailboxes on the first floor (Kotlowitz 9). Robery is also a threat for the family in TP, after discovering the large pearl, the community becomes jelous and some even try to steal the precious jewel. Overall these two stories are similar in that they are set in a poor neighborhood where he characters are just trying to get by.

Another novel that we had read and analized through out school it Warriors Don't Cry. In this novel the main characters are black highschool students who are trying to attent a white highschool in Little Rock, AR, and it is set back in a time when racial segregation in entirly different schools was compleatly normal and somewhat acceptable, by white that is. Through out the entire novel the other white students abuse the black students in horible ways such as steping on their heals til they bleed or splashing acid in their eyes. They continuously try to get the blacks to leave their white school, simply because of racial discrimination. This is similar to how Pharoah and Lafeyette feel at times, but less extreame. Life is hard for blacks in this time, but even harder for blacks in the lower class. It eventually becomes brutally evident that they are not being treated the same as whites and Pharoah thinks to himself, "the police probably don't like black children or something. The white polices don't like the black children. That's what I believe" (Kotlowitz 161). Incidence between the cops and Lafeyette arise throughout the book and increase of understanding of the extent of discrimination they are living in. These two novels are alike in their description of racial descrimination against blacks.

There Are No Children Here

Who are the main characters of your book? Describe their personalities and what seems to motivate them.


First and foremost you need to know about my book before you know anything about the characters within it. I'm reading There are no Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz, a freelance journalist for The Wall Street Journal. Its a non-fiction book that was first inspired when Kotlowitz was doing an article on a family in poverty, living in 'the projects' of Chicago. One thing led to another and soon Kotlowitz grew close to the family and decided to write an entire novel about their lives and all the conflict and struggle they had prevailed through thus far.

The two main characters in this novel are 9 year old Pharoah Rivers and 11 year old Lafeyette Rivers. Pharoah is a typical little brother, rambunctious, naive, and alway looking up to Lafeyette as a role model. However, Pharoah has seen and experienced a lot of things the average 9 year old hasn't. Living in poverty, his life is full of dangerous events that could potentially turn deadly due to gangs and other such elements. One time Pharoh, Lafeyette, and some other boys were playing by the rail road track, trying to find a gardener snake, when a train full of white, middle class people rolled by. In fear for their lives the boys hide amongst the weed because they have heard that if they are caught trespassing they will be shot (Kotlowitz 7). Living in such harsh conditions has caused Pharoah to grow up and also lower his general expectations. When he and the boys are playing around the tracks, Pharoah described how he found this place to be relaxing and quite enjoyable. The fact that such a disheveled place is a nirvana to him show that his average way of live lacks in luxuries.

Lafeyette is the other main character, at the age of 11 he has to rise above the poverty that surrounds him and be there to guide his younger brother and to help his mother. He once said to Kotlowitz, "If i grow up, I'd like to be a bus driver," (Kotlowitz x) not only does this express his low expectations for himself, but it shows that this unstable lifestyle has led Lafeyette to even doubt his future, by use the word 'if'. The fact the his survival is up in the air is a terrifying concept for me. I have planned my life off the idea that I will live well into my adulthood and probably become a senior citizen. To be unsure that you will endure life and what it has in store to the point that you don't even plan the up coming years of your life is unthinkable to me and the majority of people I know. Finally, we have to remember that these kid are in fact kids. They have gained integrity, knowledge, and character from their harsh conditions but they are only 9 and 11.

Why do people write memoirs? What power is there in telling our own stories?

Whether it's for expression, acknowledgment, understanding, and just for sharing, I think there are many reasons for people to write memoirs. Expressing your feelings can be a very relieving thing, and one way of doing this is through memoirs. When writing a memoir, especially the first draft, one tends to write EVERYTHING they remember feeling, seeing, smelling, hearing, and even tasting. By expressing these senses and your feelings toward them you can let go of bad events, relish is the good ones, and accept everything in between. Another reason many people write memoirs is to gain acknowledgement from others. If someone has experienced or witnessed an important or even devastation event, by writing a memoir others may realize a problem or achievement and even help out with it. Understanding is yet another reason to write memoirs. If someone has just experienced something life changing, by writing and reflecting back on it you can gain a lot of closure and comprehension of that event and its effects. Finally, a lot of people just write memoirs to share their life’s story with others. By sharing and communication we can find many similarities between our lives and the lives of others, and that is a really neat thing to achieve, just by writing a story.

The power of each and everyone’s story is quite great. When written well, a memoir can change someone’s opinion, stir up feeling, and even bring some one to tears. Sometime even more important than the story itself is the descriptions and word choice we can inject into our writing. These words can help the read truly visualize the setting of the story and then they can understand the writer’s point of view and what they are feeling. Memoirs can be harshly realistic, but that’s what really makes them a powerful way of writing. They are real stories from real people, and when read similarities and connections to the story and its characters are inevitable.

What types of things does Richard "hunger" for and what are the effects (pos. & neg.) of hunger?

Richard hungers many things through out the novel Black Boy, including a decent education, and the things that follow. For the most part, Richard has participated and achieved in his school, he was even named valedictorian of his class. However, he not only craved knowledge from school, he was also intrigued by writing. When his mother read him Bluebeard he was so over come by the story that all he wanted was to read and to become a writer from then on.

But knowledge wasn’t all Richard hungered; he also wanted to gain acceptance and inclusion from his family and his piers. One day Richard thinks about his life and broods over his seclusion, he says, " Passing relatives in the hallways of the crowded home and not speaking. Eating in silence at a table where prayers are said" (Wright 161) The fact that Richard is actually agnologing and describing his loneliness tell the reader that he has perhaps come to terms with it, but that also makes me think he wants acceptance more than ever.

One final thing Richard hungers in the literal answer, food. Richard father was the primary provider for Richard and the rest of his family and since his father has left the whole family has grown into a repetitive state of physical hunger. It isn’t long before Richard connects this hunger with his father's absence, he thinks to himself, "... it had never occurred to me that his absence would mean that there would be no food" (Wright 15). After a while Richard and his family break apart because they don’t have enough money to support them all and Richard has to get jobs to pay for his own food.