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Published Aug 2023
352 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
An indelible portrait of three children struggling to survive in the poorest neighborhood of the poorest large city in America
Kensington, Philadelphia, is distinguished only by its poverty. It is home to Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, three Puerto Rican children who live among the most marginalized families in the United States. This is the story of their coming-of-age, which is beset by violence—the violence of homelessness, hunger, incarceration, stray bullets, sexual and physical assault, the hypermasculine logic of the streets, and the drug trade. In Kensington, eighteenth birthdays are not rites of passage but statistical miracles.
One mistake drives Ryan out of middle school and into the juvenile justice pipeline. For Emmanuel, his queerness means his mother's rejection and sleeping in shelters. School closures and budget cuts inspire Giancarlos to lead walkouts, which get him kicked out of the system. Although all three are high school dropouts, they are on a quest to defy their fate and their neighborhood and get high school diplomas.
In a triumph of empathy and drawing on nearly a decade of reporting, sociologist and policymaker Nikhil Goyal follows Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel on their mission, plunging deep into their lives as they strive to resist their designated place in the social hierarchy. In the process, Live to See the Day confronts a new age of American poverty, after the end of "welfare as we know it," after "zero tolerance" in schools criminalized a generation of students, after the odds of making it out are ever slighter.
"[N]uanced and intimate...It's an enthralling and often maddening read." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A well-intentioned, straightforward narrative that teases the complexity of a series of societal issues." ―Kirkus Reviews
"For non-academic audiences curious about and empathetic toward the deeply personal consequences of entrenched poverty." —Library Journal
"In this impassioned, riveting feat of reporting, Nikhil Goyal follows three extraordinary children who climb mountains every day to defy the hand that America dealt them. If we did not already know that children cannot learn well when they are hungry, homeless, and criminalized, this book will leave us in no doubt. At once uplifting and enraging, this eloquent indictment just might move those with power to make real changes, to ensure that all of our children can live to see the day."
―Congressman Jamaal Bowman
"An incisive, compassionate depiction of families in a crisis not of their making and a vision of the policy choices our country could adopt to save their lives."
―Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us
"A heart-rending study of the heavy burden poor children bear in this country, Live to See the Day is a much-needed challenge to dreadful policy decisions, a predatory education and justice system, and a legacy of racism."
―Greg Grandin, author of The End of the Myth
"This powerfully realized book is a call to understand and act. Offering a reminder of the many costs exacted by deep poverty, its compelling portraits of young lives injured by humiliation, danger, and structures of exclusion also are stories of talent and resilience, struggles to overcome, and uncertain quests to survive against the odds. The significance of Live to See the Day is profound, transcending its riveting ethnography of three children, one city, one neighborhood, and one school."
―Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
This information about Live to See the Day was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Nikhil Goyal is a sociologist and policymaker who served as senior policy advisor on education and children for Chairman Senator Bernie Sanders on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Committee on the Budget. He developed education, child care, and child tax credit federal legislation as well as a tuition-free college program for incarcerated people and correctional workers in Vermont. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, and written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Nation, and other publications. Goyal earned his B.A. at Goddard College and M.Phil and Ph.D at the University of Cambridge. He lives in Washington, D.C.
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