American nation’s poorest congressional district, also the setting of Jonathan Kozol's disturbing representation of poverty in this country. The stories, which are captured
Amazing Grace, are told in the simplest terms. They are told by children who have seen their parent’s die of AIDS and other disease, by mothers who complain about teenagers bagging dope and loading guns on fire escapes, by clergy who teach the poor to fight injustice and by police who are afraid to answer 911 calls. Kozol seems to be disparaging about the situation of the poor in American today, especially when more and more the poor are blamed for being poor. Kozol’s portrait of life in Mott Haven is gentle and passionate. Even though rats may chew through apartment walls in the homes of Mott
Haven, the children still say their prayers at night. What seems to bother Kozol is that many people do not even want to look at this picture of America, but in Amazing Grace he dares us to recognize it does exist. Kozol spent a year wandering through Mott Haven and its neighboring communities; visiting churches,