Arlene Alda

The Bronx. Just the name conjures memories, even for those who grew up far away from the storied, scary place. Long before I ever set foot in New York, I knew that “...The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.” I knew it was a dangerous place, thanks to Hollywood and ABC Sports. It was the epitome of the wrong side of the tracks. Many years later, I discovered the beauty of Wave Hill and the New York Botanical Garden, the history of Gun Hill Road, the Poe Cottage, the Grand Concourse, show more the hills, valleys and beaches that make up the geography of the Bronx and the truth about New York City as a whole: despite being a “big city” it’s really just a collection of neighborhoods that function as small towns. This is what Arlene Alda sets out to show the reader in Just Kids from the Bronx.

Alda presents excerpts from interviews of over 60 people, famous and not-so-famous, who grew up in the Bronx. The book is divided into three sections: Kids born before World War II, those born during or shortly after the war (the 40s) and those born after 1950 (the youngest entrant, born in 1991). Subjects talk about the way things were: Games they played, their friends, the schools (good and bad). Patterns quickly emerge, especially in the first section, where many of the subjects are the children of European immigrants and live the classic immigrant experience, and the last, where we meet more recent immigrants and natives who survived “the Bronx is burning” era.

As a whole, the book presents an intriguing oral history of a place many know of, but few, outside its neighborhoods, know. The first two sections tend to get repetitive (“ah the good old days, yes, we were poor, but we had all we needed), but the final section shines. It not only tells a less familiar story, but, perhaps, exposes how the country as a whole has changed. Before the 70s, a “poor” family still had some options. Those options seem to have disappeared, making the success stories in the last third of the book seem like the exception rather than the rule. show less

Anyone who grew up around New York should read this book. It is an amazing collection of very short reminiscences that together paint a picture of a place that has shaped lives for decades. I laughed so hard at the story of the boy jumping in dollar bills in imitation of Scrooge McDuck, and of the boy who was dining with his date's family and took out a pack of condoms thinking it was a pack of matches.
Two things became evident as I read these stories. One was the way children's lives were show more different in the 1930's and the 1980's. The other was the way the very landscape changed. No more talk about the empty lot next door. No more the sense the four square blocks constituted the world.
This is a terrific book for the individual stories but also for the sociological picture it paints.
Thank you Arlene Alda for a very good, very insightful read. show less

I am something of a rarity in the Bronx. I'm the 4th generation of my family to live here. I raised my kids here, and still live here. And as a Community Organizer, I'm proud to have been part of the Bronx' rebirth. I love the place. So I was anxious to get my hands on Just Kids from the Bronx.

Happily, it did not disappoint. The stories told are like those told by my mom, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Like the time my uncle fell through the ice while skating on the Bronx River. A cousin show more pulled him out and flagged down a stranger who put him in his car and drove him home.

The sense of growing up in a richly diverse community where people took care of each others, is very much what I've known and lived, and its such an antidote to what people usually hear about the Bronx.

Thank you, Arlene Alda for telling the truth. I hope everyone reads this. show less

After her weekly piano lesson with Mr. Sharp, young Lulu spends the following week distracted by other matters - swinging, biking, climbing the apple tree - and doesn't do a bit of practicing. Full of apprehension as she approaches her next lesson, Lulu blurts out the truth - that she didn't practice at all - as soon as she sees her teacher. Fortunately, Mr. Sharp draws her out about what she did do, and leads her to consider those activities as musical in nature, and related to the song she show more is meant to be learning...

Although I like the idea of Lulu's Piano Lesson, both in terms of its depiction of a young girl who isn't the most disciplined, in approaching her piano lessons, and in the way her teacher handles the issue, by drawing real-world activities into the realm of music education, I couldn't help wondering, as I read along, whether Arlene Alda's narrative wasn't too text-heavy, for a picture-book of this nature. Will younger children sit still for a story involving such extended blocks of text? I suppose it depends on the child, but it is definitely something to consider. The artwork here, created by Lisa Desimini using collage and digital media, is colorful, but not really to my taste. Recommended primarily to those looking for children's stories about learning a musical instrument, the value of practice, and the importance of really listening to the world around us. show less