I DONT WISH NOBODY HAVE A LIFE

　　A veteran teacher gives an “inside” view of the lives ofjuveniles sentenced as adults
　　David Chura taught high school in a New York county penitentiaryfor ten years—five days a week, seven hours a day. In these pages,hegives a face to a population regularly demonized and reduced tostatisticsby the mainstream media. Through language marked by boththe grit of the street and the expansiveness of poetry, the storiesof these young people break down the di?visions we so easily erectbetween us and them, the keepers and the kept—and call intoquestion the increasing practice of sentencing juveniles asadults.--From the Trade Paperback edition.

　　Powerful . . . I hope some of the leaders of the Obamaadministration will pay attention to these gripping stories andwill wake our country up before it is too late.—Jonathan Kozol,author of Savage Inequalities
　　"David Chura's timely book ought to destroy our complacency. Ittakes us inside the locked-down world of neglected and abused youthwho've been cast away into adult jails and reveals, through itssuccession of haunting vignettes and surprising turns, a truth thatought to shame us: when youth fail, it is most often because weadults have failed them again and again."—David Kaczynski,executive director, New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty
　　"A painfully honest window into the hearts and minds of youth whoare incarcerated and the 'keepers' who are responsible for theirsafety and security. David Chura has crafted a terrific book: it'sat once riveting and enriching, and by its end, you'll insist upona more humane and effective approach to young offenders.—SunnySchwartz, author of Dreams from the Monster Factory
　　"In thick and unvarnished de*ions, David Chura takes us intothe growing gulag of American youth prisons and shows us thefractured faces and bruised spirits of children who seem almostcondemned to destruction by the structural ecology of class andrace and ancestry. These young people-hurt and hardened-have becomethe icons of our times, and they cry out for Divine intervention.But it's not what God has done to them, finally; it's what we'vedone to ourselves. Read this book and know we must do better."—BillAyers, author of A Kind and Just Parent
　　"I Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine is a light shiningin the hearts of locked-up kids sleepwalking past the buriedtreasure they are and may never find. From his long and devotedwork in prisons trying to breathe life into these hearts, 'Mr. C'is able to speak with authority and eloquence about how theAmerican correctional system can almost bring the saintly to theirknees. A book for anyone interested in the hardship and struggle,and (strangely) innate joy, involved in humantransformation."—Dennis Sullivan, coauthor of RestorativeJustice