The Children of Jonestown

by Kenneth Wooden

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070716412
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Length: 238 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

30 years later! They still must be remembered!

Kenneth Wooden despite some errors has written an important book on the aspect of the children of Jonestown. They were about 267 who were murdered on November 18, 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana. They were not willingly to go to the vat and drink the cynaide poison. Despite Jim Jones' wife, Marceline, known as Mother Jones who pleaded on behalf of the children, Jones had already decided the end for his flock. Many of the children were underneath the bodies of their parents in the heat of the South American jungle that Jones had promised to be the promised land, a utopia, but it turned out to be a nightmare. When Wooden wrote this book in 1981, he didn't have the resources today like the internet and instant research so I take that into account. Also many people were still in recovery from the massive loss. Of course, Wooden helps explain to his readers about the red tape and Jones' clout in human services in California. Many of the children in Jonestown were in a sense to be kidnapped by Jones and the People's Temple. He kidnapped the children and their parents if members would follow. Jones also had the seniors there as well in order to receive their social security, pension, and retirement checks which they were forced to sign over. Escape was virtually impossible at least physically. Wooden helps explain that there was no escape until Ryan and his entourage arrived. Jones was also doomed himself since he was dying and drug addicted. While he robbed the seniors and everybody of their medication, he became a drug addict, paranoid, delusional, and physically drained. He was sleeping off the drugs when Congressman Ryan arrived on November 17, 1978. The physical symptoms were already there in interviews. 24 hours later, Ryan and four others would be dead and about seven miles later, almost a thousand bodies would lay in the heat. 267 of the 909 were children. We were robbed of their lives. They had dreams of being doctors, lawyers, writers, artists, singers, etc. I don't know what might have been if they were allowed to live but I know that they should have never been in the position in the first place. While our consciousness has dismissed Jonestown and the mass "suicide" as a bunch of crazies, they were human. About 400 unidentified bodies were laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California. The bodies remained unclaimed for six months in Dover, Delaware. Only one of the victims was actually born in Delaware. This location was three thousand miles away from their previous residences of Redwood Valley, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. When they were finally laid to rest in a mass grave in May 1979 in Oakland, it was because of Evergreen's generosity to allow the burial since Guyana didn't want them buried on the grounds of Jonestown since they didn't want a cult shrine in their memory. They were 909 human beings and half of them were treated to a burial and only until 2008 is when a large plaque with all their names and ages were pla