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Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty Hardcover – August 22, 2023

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

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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.

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From the Publisher

Live to See the Day Nikhil Goyal

Live to See the Day Nikhil Goyal Diane Ravitch quote

Live to See the Day Nikhil Goyal Jamaal Bowman quote

Live to See the Day Nikhil Goyal Bill McKibben quote

Live to See the Day Nikhil Goyal Jonathan Kozol quote

Editorial Reviews

Review

A Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker
Winner of the 2024 Media for a Just Society Award

"The safety net is in tatters, Goyal shows, and poverty is a tightrope walk with no room for error … Goyal is a vivid writer ― the stories he tells about these kids’ circumstances are painful and viscerally frustrating … The reader begins to ask lots of what-ifs, wishing for much better outcomes for all three teenagers."
The New York Times

"The stories of these children will change the way you think about poverty … A sweeping indictment of what it means to be poor in America"
Washington Post

"Sweeping work of reportage about life in the low-income neighborhood of Kensington … [Goyal] depicts in granular detail the suffocating effects of poverty."
The New Yorker

"Gripping … It is also a call to action aimed at city leaders who have not done nearly enough to address historical neglect and a country that could change policies and save lives."
Philadelphia Inquirer

"A book of both big ideas ― reflecting Goyal's former job as a senior policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders ― and close-up immersive journalism"
Los Angeles Times

"Writing with profound empathy and heart…It is an in-depth, real, gut-wrenching story (an ethnography) of the lives of children who are enduring the policies and actions that divide us and perpetuate inequities. Goyal is a beautiful writer and engages the reader in the lives of Corem, Ryan, and Giancarlos in order to push us to act, to care, and to change."
Forbes

"A nuanced and intimate portrayal of three Puerto Rican teens growing up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, drawing on a decade of research in the community to demonstrate how poverty is a barely surmountable obstacle for disadvantaged young people. It’s an enthralling and often maddening read."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"From a passionate warrior for joy and justice in our public schools,
Live to See the Day is a beautifully empathetic work of powerful reportage that reads like a gripping novel. The struggle of these children to rise above the brutality they experience in the schools and streets of Kensington offers at least some seeds of hope at a very dark moment in our history."
―Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities

"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

"An illuminating chronicle of life on the edge amid crushing poverty and neglect in America’s poorest big city.
Live to See the Day is powerful and essential reading."
―David Zucchino, author of Wilmington's Lie

"Nikhil Goyal’s gripping portrayal of three teenagers struggling to survive under the harshest of circumstances brings to life the terrible failure of the federal government to reduce poverty and ensure a decent life for all Americans. Everyone needs to read this. And then do something about it."
―Diane Ravitch, author of Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools

"A monument of superb and dedicated reporting, very much in the vein of Katherine Boo and Jason DeParle. An act more of empathy than sympathy,
Live to See the Day captures harsh realities in convincing, telling detail, and it will leave you looking for ways to make changes. Fortunately, Nikhil Goyal has some to offer. An instant classic."
―Bill McKibben, author of The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon

About the Author

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 Vermont.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Metropolitan Books (August 22, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250850061
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250850065
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.45 x 1.15 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2023
    Excellent service and perfect condition.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2023
    Share the life journeys of young people in the poorest corners of Philadelphia as they struggle to complete high school. The deck is stacked against them—they live in poor housing, in food deserts, surrounded by drugs and hostile police. The school system stifles creativity more than it educates. That they find their way at all borders on the incredible. The travails of these young people are hard to wrap your brain around, but it is important that we try to do so. The author became a policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, where he has been an architect of many of the Senator’s socially progressive proposals to share America’s wealth more equitably, which have been at the heart of Sen. Sanders’ political campaigns. Read more at bookmanreader on blogspot.
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2023
    I picked this up because the sociologist in me needs to know about things like social security payouts, racism, underfunded schools, and just about anything else that affects our society.
    This book hit all the spots for me.
    I loved how they introduced us to the boys and told us their story, while also introducing us to their parents and communities.
    There is a theme of teen pregnancy and jobs that do not pay a living wage, as well as housing that isn't stable. We, as country, know how to fix these things but we opt not to.
    I already have three friends in mind I will be recommending this book to.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2023
    In this book, Nikhil Goyal threads the very difficult needle of telling an engaging and often heart wrenching story, while also making insightful connections on how the story fits into broader policy failures in American society. I could not put this book down and came away with a deeper and more nuanced view of the world around me. What more can anyone ask for out of a book?
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2024
    If you take this guy's public policy reccomendations, it would only make Main Line liberals feel better and probably deepen the horror and desperation of Kensington. This also reads like all the main characters are essentially progressive inventions. My family owned a shop on Kensingtpn Avenue for half a century, the neighborhood has horrors but this is written with an obvious agenda to justify the same destructive policies that destroyed the neighborhood in the first place. The hood is already one of the most under policed places in the entire world.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2024
    I've been working in the neighborhood portrayed in this book for 35 years. The author doesn't quite have it right.
    1. Kensington is not a paradise, but it's not as bad as he makes it. There are a lot of solid families here. Lots of kids come from two parent families. He exaggerates the frequency of gunfire and shooting victims. Most of the houses are decent with working utilities.
    2. There are programs for kids in the neighborhood. The library has programs and homework help everyday. There are music classes, crafts, free lunch, and other activities in the library daily. Rec dept. has activities in the park. The Flyers built a playground for the children.
    3. In this author's agenda the police are horrible people, and the schools don't care about the kids. So wrong. I've seen police officers shine their lights on the playground so kids could keep playing. I knew of a school principal who did laundry for a child so he would stop staying home because his clothes were dirty. The author thought the school and police were cruel because they disciplined a child for starting fires in the school and throwing furniture. Should school officials really allow a child to endanger the lives of the other children?
    4. The author never holds the people he profiles responsible for their own actions. Many of the problems of the people profiled were of their own making. Women chose men who were drug dealers or addicts, people didn't control their tempers, got into fights and ended up in court, women who were already struggling had more children, people chose to smoke pot and use drugs, kids don't go to school, adults get bored and quit jobs without another job. The author just makes excuses for them.
    I've had kids from this neighborhood who have gone on to be doctors and engineers I've also had kids who went on to prison, or a life of drugs. It's a hard neighborhood, but your choices shape your life.
    This author is what my supervisor called a "limousine liberal" aka someone who thinks he knows what it's like to live in poverty and has all the answers from the safety of his middle class world.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2023
    As an unwilling graduate of the school of hard knocks whose mother, brothers & sisters were all abandoned by our father when I was 2, I’m really frustrated by this author’s “discovery” of my family’s and the millions of other poverty-stricken American families’ plights, as if the Lord had suddenly removed the scales from his eyes. DUH!

    And his book is also really boring to read…
    4 people found this helpful
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