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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.420869420973
EAN num: 9780684840062
ISBN number: 0684840065
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: February 25, 1999
Publishing house: Scribner
Sale Popularity Level: 149598
Studio: Scribner
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Zucchino spent a year sharing the lives of Odessa Williams and Cheri Honkala -- two 'welfare mothers' in Philadelphia -- to gain an intimate look at their day-to-day existence. Odessa, supporting an extended family, exhibits almost superhuman strength and resolve. Cheri, a single mother, is a tireless advocate for the homeless. Zucchino beautifully portrays them as figures of profound courage and quiet perseverance, systematically shattering all misconceptions and stereotypes about these women and so many others like them.
Amazon.com Review:
Welfare moms are 'the most hated women in America,' says Cheri Honkala, a dynamic activist from Philadelphia who is profiled in the engrossing Myth of the Welfare Queen. As the American mood toward welfare turned mean in the mid-1990s and politicians worked to radically change who got benefits and for how long, Honkala used her considerable talents in guerrilla theater to fight bureaucrats on behalf of a rising tide of dispossessed women and children. She keeps the TV news spotlight on the homeless with a host of inspired acts: a long-term tent city for displaced families, the takeover of a church, a grungy encampment subsequent to the Liberty Bell. Nonetheless, folks dispute how helpful such confrontations are. Odessa Williams, a resourceful, resilient woman who supports four grandchildren and then doubles that number when new troubles strike, is the other sympathetic subject in this tough, humanizing portrait of women on welfare by Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor David Zucchino.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
This book gave a very first hand account of the life of welfare moms (and grandmas and great-grandmas) living in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Philadelphia. The book gives no answers for how to solve the problem of urban poverty but it does show you how these families live, day in and day out. You see that some women are trying to make wise choices, such as education, while others have given up hope and turned to drugs, prostitution and laziness. One grandma is getting job training so she can get a good job until her teenage daughter falls asleep during the day while her 2 young boys set the house on fire.
This book also shows the incredible value placed on family in this culture. When these fires occur (there are more than one), the whole family comes together to rebuild. When one mom succumbs to prostitution, the grandmother takes in her 3 children and raises them as her own. On Thanksgiving day, everyone is invited and included -- the prostitute, the drug user, the jail bird -- because family is family.
The book also follows the life of a activist fighting for the rights of the homeless. She is frustrated with the bureaucracy of the city's homeless solution and attempts to house the homeless herself in a tent city, in an abandon church and finally in abandoned homes meant for those who have worked the system. She is clearly breaking the law and yet it is hard to say who is helping the homeless more.
At the end of the book I had more questions than answers.
Rated by buyers -
I was hoping for more academic writing, studies, statistics and other tools used to debunk the myth of the welfare queen.
The writing is engaging and effectively humanizes the individuals involved, taking your through their trials and tribulations, but doesn't seem to prove anything beyond the idea that people on welfare are, in fact, people. Now that I think about it, that might be a radical idea for some.
Rated by buyers 
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The beauty of this book is the simplicity with which it is written. There are not technical terms to maneuver around. It takes a very candid look at a world many of us will never experience. It shows the very human characteristics of single mothers on welfare. The book never gets boring because it reads like a story. This is a non-fiction piece with all the compelling attributes of a fictional novel. This is not just a light rainy-day read either. It forces you to look into the lives of these women. Zucchino describes Odessa and Cheri's horrible necessicities like dumpster diving and prostitution so flippantly, it makes you want to scream, "But these women shouldn't be living like this!"
Rated by buyers -
This is not the book to read if you are trying to make up your mind about welfare issues or reinforce the ideas that you already have. It is an amazingly unjudgemental look at the lives of those on welfare in the inner city that will at times make you raving mad, whether at the people who refuse to work with the system for the sake of their children or at a system that fails those who give everything they have to take care of children they only want the best for, and sometimes have no direct responsibility for (grandchildren, children they have taken in). It puts real situations and struggles in the place of the abstract idea of public assistance. Within the pages you will meet kindhearted, incredibly nonbitter people, like Odessa, who you will admire and, at the same time, long to reach out to. Those who you would pity for their horrible circumstances if only you could not tell from reading about their lives that they are far too good of people to need or want pity. You will also meet people who you cannot feel sympathy for. People you will want to just slap for their irresponsibility and for not putting their children's needs before their own whims. This book shows just how complex the issue of welfare is, and that a set of laws or policies is not going help some people who are just stuck between a rock and a hard place. It will show you that there is no typical welfare recipients, even among those living in one neighborhood. Though some of the people are unbelievably good , and some horrible individuals, it will show the many greys in between. It is a portrait of those suffering for the nation's view of the "Welfare Queen." Those with huge hearts and horrible circumstances infinity entitled to whatever they need to do the job that we would not want to (raising troubled grandchildren amd great-grandchildren with meager means like Odessa, or being the self-appointed guardian of the homeless like Cheri). It is also a portrait of those who stubbornly refuse to help themselves, and fully live up to the idea of the irresponsible, neglectful mother who rather hang out with different men and continue to get pregnant than think of her own children. This is not a book that will make up your mind, but it is one that will give you an understanding of why this is such a hard issue to even begin to think of any sort of solution for.
Rated by buyers -
This book brings about a huge reality check. You realize how much the typical "welfare queen" makes it all work. You realize all they have to deal with on a daily basis when most of us do not give a second thought to letting our kids go to the park. I thought this and Jonathon Kozol's Amazing Grace were so similar. They paint a clear picture of what it is like to live in a poor city, and having to deal with the everyday trials. Odessa is a strong woman and that shines through the book, she is a caring woman who is taking care of her grandchildren and her great grandchildren. Even though she raised her children, she continues to raise her grandchildren. She has amazing strength and an amazing way to make life for her children a little easier. I loved this book, and our class had the ablity to go and meet Odessa, she is a wonderful and admirable woman. This book will grab your attention and keep it. Once you read this book then go on to Jonathon Kozol's Amazing Grace. They will give you a new sense of reality. It will make you realize that no matter what happens to you, there is someone out there that has it worse than you in some way.
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