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VOICE, CHOICE, AND ACTION

Name: VOICE, CHOICE, AND ACTION
Author: Felton Earls
ISBN: 978-0-674-98742-5

THE POTENTIAL OF YOUNG CITIZENS TO HEAL DEMOCRACY

by Felton Earls & Mary Carlson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2020

An inspiring vision of a newly inclusive democracy.

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With guidance and encouragement, children can participate as effective citizens.

Psychiatrist Earls and neurobiologist Carlson bring decades of research in child development and experience with at-risk children to their persuasive plea for young people’s inclusion in active citizenship. Organizing their book into four themes—nurture, voice, choice, and action—the authors examine the influences on children of their earliest attachments, citing in particular Romanian orphans who, from birth to age 3, were deprived of loving contact and Brazilian street children, whose care for one another reflected early nurturing by adults. The authors reveal how young people were inspired by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child “to assemble, to find common cause, and to speak up about their concerns.” Working with two groups in Chicago’s urban neighborhoods demonstrated to the authors how children’s participation helped communities make choices “about how to monitor stress in the context of out-of-home care and urban violence.” In Tanzania, children conceived of and conducted “a massive public education campaign, showing their parents and neighbors the reality of HIV and how to combat it.” Reflecting their years of research and dedication to an action-based, participatory approach, the authors provide specific guidelines for parents, teachers, police, and other authority figures in setting up a Young Citizens program, aimed at children ages 10 to 14, in their own communities. They recommend, for example, that children should be selected randomly, ensuring equal opportunity for all, and that adult facilitators “have some grounding in child development and complete a two-week, full-day training in a standardized but highly participatory curriculum.” Drawing on Amartya Sen’s writings on human development and Jürgen Habermas’ theories of social justice, the authors underscore that “when members of a community come together to identify and freely discuss their common problems, their discussion is not ‘just words’ but rather the first step toward consensual, rational, shared social action.”

An inspiring vision of a newly inclusive democracy.

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-674-98742-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Belknap/Harvard Univ.

Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020

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HOSTAGE

by Eli Sharabi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2025

A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.

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Enduring the unthinkable.

This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.

A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.

Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025

ISBN: 9780063489790

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025

Categories:

ISSUES & CONTROVERSIES | GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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DEAR NEW YORK

by Brandon Stanton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2025

A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.

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Portraits in a post-pandemic world.

After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.

A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.