Award-winning author discusses book with LT students

Award-winning author and story teller Alex Kotlowitz recently visited Lyons Township High School to discuss his book, There are No Children Here, with American Studies Accelerated students.

Kotlowitz has been telling stories of struggle and perseverance for decades. His national best seller There are No Children Here, which students read to culminate their legacy of slavery unit, provides an empathetic look at the complex forces that shape the lives of two young African American boys in Chicago’s housing projects in the late 1980s. He has also written The Other Side of the River, which received The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, a book on Chicago called Never a City So Real, and, most recently, An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago.

LT American Studies teacher Katy Newcomb said, “Students learned about how the author, as an outsider, approached writing so intimately about the lives of Pharoah and Lafayette in the Henry Horner homes, by becoming a constant presence in the community and their family, to earn their trust and convey their story.” Students asked questions that connected what they learned from the book to today’s issues. “Our conversation with him showed us how he continues to grapple with the ways race and poverty impact our society,” Newcomb added.