Product Description

When award-winning educator and activist Geoff Canada was growing up in the Bronx, the "sidewalk" boys learned the codes of the block from their elders and were ranked--and to some degree protected--through the rituals of fist, stick, and knife. Weaving in and out of his stark storytelling is a cogent anaylsis of how the complicity of gun manufacturers turned this contained violence into today's world of drive-by shootings and automatic weapons.

A Teacher's Guide for this book is available.

"The vignettes band together with a kind of clarifying momentum, so that the result is something more. . . . A beacon."


--New York Times Book Review
"A more powerful depiction of the tragic life of urban children and a more compelling plea to end' America's war against itself' cannot be imagined.


--Publishers Weekly
"Geoff Canada has been cultivating virtue, and hope, in children for the past 10 years."


--Newsweek
"A slim, revealing volume that should be required reading for anyone who was ever a child, for anyone who has ever negotiated the complicated hierarchy of 'rep' and revenge on city streets."


--Boston Globe
"Part memoir, part social treatise, a wholly sobering view of inner-city violence and the codes surrounding it."


--Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27520 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Canada knows the world of inner-city children intimately, for he grew up in some of the most dangerous areas of the Bronx. As a young child, he learned that only those who can fight will survive. When he reached adolescence, the knife was the weapon of choice, but for today's youth, which he calls "the handgun generation," it is the pistol. Canada explains exactly what growing up in this war zone does to the psyche: fear, doubt and anger crowd the mind, driving out love, friendship and laughter. There is no post-traumatic stress syndrome, because there is no "post." Greedy drug dealers and gun manufacturers, he says, by flooding the inner cities with their products, have made urban violence, which always existed, more deadly. He has a series of recommendations, rooted in his own experience as a child and as an adult, that are thoroughly convincing. A more powerful depiction of the tragic life of urban children and a more compelling plea to end "America's war against itself" cannot be imagined. 40,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This brutally honest account of a childhood in the Bronx is a personal history of violence in America and a hopeful plea for the salvation of our children caught in today's cross fire. Canada's childhood experiences influenced his sensitive understanding of violent attitudes born out of fear and self-preservation. What is perhaps most disturbing about the events Canada experienced is the degree to which all such occurrences (gang fights, weapon use, drug abuse) have increased in frequency and randomness, escalated in intensity, and been magnified by movies and media, which continue to promote heroes who succeed through brute force. Canada contends that we, particularly our children, are subjected to a kind of unstated death penalty as the odds for being shot and killed, not even being the target, have dramatically increased. Anyone living in urban America can relate to this book on some level, for we are all aware that our cities have become just as war torn and dangerous as any official battleground. Canada is willing not only to discuss this crisis, but to offer firsthand solutions by such examples as the Countee Cullen Community Center in Harlem, which provides unity, education, and safety for its neighboring community. This book should be necessary reading for all politicians and media personnel and for every NRA member who thinks licensing handguns, getting "tough on crime," or "just saying no" is enough. For Canada, all such quick-fix solutions are temporary mortar for the ever-widening crack in America's foundation. Janet St. John

Review
Violence in America is blended with autobiography in a title which charts the author's own coming of age in a violent South Bronx society and the present realities of gang violence and life in the area. Schools in America are often dangerous places rather than institutions of learning, and kids learn about violence before they learn about anything else, according to this candid, hard-hitting book. -- Midwest Book Review

Customer Reviews

Vivid.
Mr.Canada grew up in the 60's in the Bronx. In this book he talks about what it was like to live there. He talks about having to prove yourself or face the prospect of getting your ... kicked in the future. You get a VIVID description of what he was up against as a young person. I mean, I grew up a long way away in a much less dangerous place, and I knew exactly what he was getting at. That's a testament to his writing, and the universality of the subject. Mr. Canada recalls one episode where he is walking a few blocks out of his neighborhood, and you get a detailed view of how dangerous this was. Just walking down the street! All I can say against the book is that I would have liked even more of the authors autobiography. Later on in the book, he gets more polemical about what can be done. I agree with what he says, but as far as literary quality goes, that stuff isn't really in the same league as the earlier part of the book. Also, let me say, the author has an excellent, direct writing style, which makes what he has to say that much more powerful.

A must read if you live anywhere
I read fist stick knife gun in one day. Not because it was short, not because it has easy to read font, but because it was one of the most important books I had ever read.

Like the author, my roots were in the poor central city. Unlike the author, the central city I grew up in was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, not New York City. Besides being female, I come from a white, two-parent family, so my perspective of the inner city is very different then the author Geoffrey Canada. As I read about his neighborhood I recognized elements similar to my own from childhood, and yet his story was unlike any other I had ever read.

"fist stick knife gun" is not just one mans youth, but is a history of what made the ghettos and why they still exist. As Canada gives us his account of growing up, he also tells us what laws were put in place, and what was changing in both New York and the nation that were catalysts of the current inner city scenario. This includes the infiltration of crack and the concurrent development of gangs.

In the last quarter of the book, Canada tells us his ideas of what could be done to end violence in the inner city. Whether or not these are effective plans, they at least give us options and the beginning of a dialogue, which is not the result of most books.

I recommend this book to everyone, because lawmakers and voters alike need to understand what the problem of violence is and why it exists, and this book gives an effective and readable look.

A must read for everyone concerned with children
I grew up on the southside of Chicago. While reading this book I could relate to every experience that Mr. Canada relates. The book is easy to read. I think he identifies the problems well. Everyone who cares about children should read this book and help our children.