Delicate prose and the sweet insightful wisdom of children reveal the atrocities of one of our nation's poorest neighborhoods, Mott Haven, in New York's South Bronx. In Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol speaks through the hearts and minds of children who live daily in a war zone of drugs, prostitution, gunfire, and illness. Children tell of their dreams and worries; those who want to get a good education, eat snowcones, or enjoy a small packet of cookies, deal with AIDS, rape, and hunger on a daily basis. The principal of P.S. 65 speaks of the many children who are scarred by household fires, a result of the poor housing conditions in Mott Haven, and says that " other children treat them kindly and do not make fun of them...they know that the world does not much like them and they try hard to be good to one another." Mrs. Washington, dying of AIDS, has to clean her own hospital room when she checks in. She knows where to find fresh sheets on her ward. Admission in the local hospital sometimes comes after sitting in the waiting room for a couple of days. On Christmas Eve, during one of the hymns, two bullets ring out from the entrance to the church. The song stops and before resuming, one man comments, "not automatic fire," as if this was cause to rejoice. This is not an easy book to read, yet these children's stories are full of tenderness, and love, and " grace. " This is a neighborhood where people try to get by and that our country tries to forget.-T.A.T.