Reviews
“Powerful . . . I hope some of the leaders of the Obama administration will pay attention to these gripping stories and will wake our country up before it is too late.� -Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities “[Chura] recalls the raw, gritty emotions of young men with little education and few options. . . . A compelling personal look at the failings of the juvenile justice system.� - Booklist “As U.S. courts send more than 250,000 minors each year into adult prisons . . . Chura’s anguished, incisive depiction of one of those outposts is not merely an indictment of the system. It’s a compelling call to repair our society’s brokenness.� -Cathi Dunn MacRae, Youth Today "David Chura's timely book ought to destroy our complacency. It takes us inside the locked-down world of neglected and abused youth who've been cast away into adult jails and reveals, through its succession of haunting vignettes and surprising turns, a truth that ought to shame us: when youth fail, it is most often because we adults have failed them again and again." -David Kaczynski, executive director, New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty "A painfully honest window into the hearts and minds of youth who are incarcerated and the 'keepers' who are responsible for their safety and security. David Chura has crafted a terrific book: it's at once riveting and enriching, and by its end, you'll insist upon a more humane and effective approach to young offenders. -Sunny Schwartz, author of Dreams from the Monster Factory "In thick and unvarnished descriptions, David Chura takes us into the growing gulag of American youth prisons and shows us the fractured faces and bruised spirits of children who seem almost condemned to destruction by the structural ecology of class and race and ancestry. These young people-hurt and hardened-have become the icons of our times, and they cry out for Divine intervention. But it's not what God has done to them, finally; it's what we've done to ourselves. Read this book and know we must do better." -Bill Ayers, author of A Kind and Just Parent " I Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine is a light shining in the hearts of locked-up kids sleepwalking past the buried treasure they are and may never find. From his long and devoted work in prisons trying to breathe life into these hearts, 'Mr. C' is able to speak with authority and eloquence about how the American correctional system can almost bring the saintly to their knees. A book for anyone interested in the hardship and struggle, and (strangely) innate joy, involved in human transformation." -Dennis Sullivan, coauthor of Restorative Justice "Chura doesn't gloss over the crimes these people have committed . . . but he also reveals the inmates as people, many of whom grew up with problems they had little control over. We also meet the wardens-some stern but goodhearted, some hardened and pitiless. Chura offers moments of humor and even hope, but we always return to the frustration and anger of his students, whose poor decisions and poorer circumstances have led them, often repeatedly, inside the walls of the prison." - Shambala Sun “In language that carries both the grit of the street and the expansiveness of poetry, Chura breaks down the divisions we so easily erect between us and them, the keepers and the kept-and shows how, ultimately, we as individuals and as a society have failed these young people.� -Juvenile Prison Watch, "Riveting . . . An indictment of the system."--Sam Roberts, New York Times "As U.S. courts send more than 250,000 minors each year into adult prisons (according to a 2008 Juvenile Justice report), Chura's anguished, incisive depiction of one of those outposts is . . . a compelling call to repair our society's brokenness."--Cathi Dunn MacRae, Youth Today "In its many twists and turns, the book discovers in the prison labyrinth a metaphor of the confinements and refuges of the human spirit. In the face of every person he so carefully depicts, the author shows us a mirror."--David Kaczynski, Times Union "[Chura] recalls the raw, gritty emotions of young men with little education and few options. . . . A compelling personal look at the failings of the juvenile justice system."-- Booklist, "Riveting . . . An indictment of the system."-Sam Roberts, New York Times "As U.S. courts send more than 250,000 minors each year into adult prisons (according to a 2008 Juvenile Justice report), Chura's anguished, incisive depiction of one of those outposts is . . . a compelling call to repair our society's brokenness."-Cathi Dunn MacRae, Youth Today "In its many twists and turns, the book discovers in the prison labyrinth a metaphor of the confinements and refuges of the human spirit. In the face of every person he so carefully depicts, the author shows us a mirror."-David Kaczynski, Times Union "[Chura] recalls the raw, gritty emotions of young men with little education and few options. . . . A compelling personal look at the failings of the juvenile justice system."- Booklist
