Hear These Voices: Youth at the Edge of the Millennium

By Anthony Allison

Book Overview

Here is an extraordinary journey into the hearts and minds of teenagers at risk. In these eight remarkable interviews, photographer and documentarian Anthony Allison invites readers to share in the life experiences of his subjects through indepth, first-person narration and startlingly reverent black-and-white portraits.As Carl Sandburg said of Edward Steichen's work, here are "faces beyond forgetting". Aged ten to nineteen, the protagonists of this unflinchingly honest collection tell what it is like to grow up in a world fraught with unspeakable obstacles: family abuse and homelessness, rampant violence, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV/AIDS infection. We meet Irina from Kiev and Ranson, a Native American from South Dakota, both weighing the value of sobriety in cultures rife with alcoholism. We meet two pairs of friends -- Phil and Antonio from the South Bronx, and Sharon and Caroline from Belfast -- all four trying to stay safe and remain psychically whole in neighborhoods where fatal violence is an everyday occurrence. We meet Muay, sold to a Bangkok brothel at the age of ten by her stepfather, and Daisy, a homosexual young man living with AIDS in San Francisco. And finally we meet Carrie, who ran away from her troubled home to a life on the Denver streets, and two groups of homeless boys attempting to find their way in a changing South Africa. Although their stories may not end "happily ever after", all the subjects have benefited from the intervention of

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525453539
• ISBN13: 9780525453536
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Dutton Children's Books
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.2" x 10.1"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

Heart-wrenching and important

This is an unexpected book in the sense that it (a) allows young people to speak for themselves and, (b) what the young people (from all over the world) have to say about their joys and woes grips the heart and mind of the reader and leaves one feeling that more simply must be done for our children.Covering everything from an Asian child sold into sexual slavery, to African boys thrown away by their families, to a midwestern American gay, to girlfriends in Northern Ireland, Alison's stark photos are a gritty compliment to the voices that speak with painful honesty. There is a universal commonality that ties these young people together--their desire to do something with their lives, their need to be valued, and their overwhelming responsiveness to help and love when it's offered by some very special, very caring people who also get to speak.Every family with a troubled child, and every troubled child, should have a copy of this book. It is a tool that could bridge a lot of the gaps between parents and children.Most highly recommended.

MAGNIFICENT!

After reading Allison's work I was immobile, for it left me so spellbound, and in a state of awe that i felt i was incapable to continue. Such insightful and intellignet documentation is rare and few works compare to this. Thought prevoking and highly reccomended.

An essential read

Allison here captures vivid emotion in eloquent style within the borders of his black and white photographs. A captivating and moving work. Strongly recommended.

This book is better than mine!

Hi, I'm the Rock. The rock says... that this book touched my heart. Everybody should read this book. If you feel things haven't been going well financially for you lately, once you read this book, you'll feel so lucky that you have what you have; I know I certainly did. I feel so sorry for those poor, inner-city kids that I, the Rock, have started a charity for inner-city kids that don't have as much as others. This book was very inspirational for me and will be even more inspirational for you. Read this book! Also read it because Stone cold said so. And that's the bottom line!

Allison Rules

Allison is a sportsmanship obsessed man who delivers excellently in "Hear These Voices." It's surprising a man like Mr. Allison would write such a book, being the man he is. He hates when anybody curses, but he allowed cursing in his book. When you hear the word competetitive, you don't think of Anthony. However, "Hear These Voices" is a work of brilliance from this young, sportsmanship driven man, out of Amagansett, Long Island. TWO THUMBS UP- ROGER EBERTSPORTSMANSHIP AND NON-COMPETETIVENESS IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS