
Amazing Grace
The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dick Hill
-
By:
-
Jonathan Kozol
About this listen
Amazing Grace is a book about the hearts of children who grow up in the South Bronx - the poorest congressional district of our nation.
The children we meet through the deepening friendships that evolve between Janathan Kozol and their families defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented on TV and in newspapers. Tender, generous, and often religiously devout, they speak with painful clarity about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them.
"It's not like being in a jail," says 15-year-old Isabel. "It's more like being hidden. It's as if you have been put in a garage where, if they don't have room for something but aren't sure if they should throw it out, they put it there where they don't need to think of it again."
Without rhetoric, but drawing extensively upon the words of children, parents, and priests, this book does not romanticize or soften the effects of violence and sickness. Amazing Grace makes clear that the postmodern ghetto of America is not a social accident but is created and sustained by greed, neglect, racism, and expedience. It asks questions like, What is the value of child's life? What do we plan to do with those whom we have decided are superfluous? How tough do we dare to be?
©1996 Jonathan Kozol (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
- A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
- By: Anne Fadiman
- Narrated by: Pamela Xiong
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos.
-
-
Good audiobook but narrator struggles with basic pronunciation
- By Kate on 06-04-15
By: Anne Fadiman
-
Fire in the Ashes
- Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Keythe Farley
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his prize-winning books Rachel and Her Children and Amazing Grace, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood. For nearly 50 years Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation.
-
-
A hauting but beautiful book
- By LAM X LUU on 10-01-14
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
Ordinary Resurrections
- Children in the Years of Hope
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Kozol's books have become touchstones of the American conscience. Unlike his previous books, however, Ordinary Resurrections is almost entirely narrative and takes us into the fascinating details of daily life as he has lived it with young children who befriended him over the course of several years. Like Amazing Grace, this book describes the children of New York's South Bronx, but it is a markedly different book in mood and vantage point.
-
-
Feel good book
- By Santiago on 03-31-10
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
Savage Inequalities
- Children in America's Schools
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Mark Winston
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Kozol traveled from the most blighted neighborhoods of Chicago to the urban wreckage of Camden, New Jersey; from the ghetto suburbs of Detroit to inner-city San Antonio; East St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Everywhere, he discovered separate systems of public schools, with the children of America's poor condemned to schools that are underfunded, understaffed, physically crumbling, and imbued with despair.
-
-
Excellent book for budding education professionals
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-17
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
The Shame of the Nation
- The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of Black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968.
-
-
Thank You
- By Sierra on 01-27-11
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
-
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
- A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
- By: Anne Fadiman
- Narrated by: Pamela Xiong
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos.
-
-
Good audiobook but narrator struggles with basic pronunciation
- By Kate on 06-04-15
By: Anne Fadiman
-
Fire in the Ashes
- Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Keythe Farley
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his prize-winning books Rachel and Her Children and Amazing Grace, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood. For nearly 50 years Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation.
-
-
A hauting but beautiful book
- By LAM X LUU on 10-01-14
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
Ordinary Resurrections
- Children in the Years of Hope
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Kozol's books have become touchstones of the American conscience. Unlike his previous books, however, Ordinary Resurrections is almost entirely narrative and takes us into the fascinating details of daily life as he has lived it with young children who befriended him over the course of several years. Like Amazing Grace, this book describes the children of New York's South Bronx, but it is a markedly different book in mood and vantage point.
-
-
Feel good book
- By Santiago on 03-31-10
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
Savage Inequalities
- Children in America's Schools
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Mark Winston
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Kozol traveled from the most blighted neighborhoods of Chicago to the urban wreckage of Camden, New Jersey; from the ghetto suburbs of Detroit to inner-city San Antonio; East St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Everywhere, he discovered separate systems of public schools, with the children of America's poor condemned to schools that are underfunded, understaffed, physically crumbling, and imbued with despair.
-
-
Excellent book for budding education professionals
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-17
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
The Shame of the Nation
- The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of Black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968.
-
-
Thank You
- By Sierra on 01-27-11
By: Jonathan Kozol
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
-
The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
-
-
Superior non-fiction
- By Lila on 05-20-11
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered
- The Definitive How-To Guide
- By: Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark
- Narrated by: Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, Paul Giamatti
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sharing never-before-heard stories ranging from their struggles with depression, eating disorders, and addiction, Karen and Georgia irreverently recount their biggest mistakes and deepest fears, reflecting on the formative life events that shaped them into two of the most followed voices in the nation. In Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered, Karen and Georgia focus on the importance of self-advocating and valuing personal safety over being "nice" or "helpful." They delve into their own pasts, true crime stories, and beyond to discuss meaningful issues with empathy and frankness.
-
-
I just really enjoyed Karen crying
- By VOGUEMAG on 05-28-19
By: Karen Kilgariff, and others
-
Beloved
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
-
-
Author-read Books
- By John R Williford on 07-14-06
By: Toni Morrison
-
A Long Way Gone
- Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
- By: Ishmael Beah
- Narrated by: Ishmael Beah
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is how wars are fought now by children, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.
-
-
Author's voice
- By B. Bunt on 11-01-13
By: Ishmael Beah
-
I Am Malala
- The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
- By: Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb - contributor
- Narrated by: Archie Panjabi
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York.
-
-
One Book Can Change the World
- By Cynthia on 10-13-13
By: Malala Yousafzai, and others
-
The Girl with the Louding Voice
- A Novel
- By: Abi Daré
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams.
-
-
A must HEAR!
- By Michelle on 03-09-20
By: Abi Daré
-
Race, Crime, and the Law
- By: Randall Kennedy
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking, powerfully reasoned, lucid work that is certain to provoke controversy, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy takes on a highly complex issue in a way that no one has before. Kennedy uncovers the long-standing failure of the justice system to protect Blacks from criminals, probing allegations that Blacks are victimized on a widespread basis by racially discriminatory prosecutions and punishments, but he also engages the debate over the wisdom and legality of using racial criteria in jury selection.
-
-
Crucial book written on an important topic but worst narrator ever
- By Andrew E. Cox on 08-28-21
By: Randall Kennedy
-
The Promise of a Pencil
- How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change
- By: Adam Braun
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just 16 years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "A pencil." This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of 24.
-
-
Ignore negative reviews
- By Wen on 04-04-16
By: Adam Braun
-
Sula
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
-
-
Good against evil and a riotous story to boot
- By Karen on 04-11-11
By: Toni Morrison
-
I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced
- By: Nujood Ali
- Narrated by: Meera Simhan
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night.
-
-
Three stars
- By Douglas on 11-11-10
By: Nujood Ali
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
The Color of Water
- A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Susan Denaker
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her 12 Black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.
-
-
Awesome
- By Michael on 05-30-17
By: James McBride
I love this book, it really made me happy
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Just not fair.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you’re looking for a way to confront white privilege deeply during this time of searching for healing responses to the divisions in our society, dig into Jonathan Kozol’s work. You will see through different eyes. And, no offense, @DickHill, I truly enjoyed listening to you, but a white man doing black street vernacular doesn’t age well.
The Roots of Change are in Education
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Eye-Opening
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Useless
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A Poignant Look at the South Bronx in the 1990s
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.