Schwartz-Nobel, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award, follows up her groundbreaking 1981 exposé, Starving in the Shadow of Plenty, with a new report, aiming to tell additional stories of America's hungry children—reportedly more than 12 million in number—because "[n]umbers are for the mind and stories are for the heart." Traveling coast to coast, she reaches into the hearts, minds and hopes of the disenfranchised, in particular single mothers and their children. She uncovers hunger in rural, urban and suburban neighborhoods, among the working poor and immigrants, even within the military and the middle class. The increase of hunger in America she documents as a direct result of Reagan's federal aid cutbacks in the 1980s as well as the 1996 welfare to work laws, which changed welfare and food stamp policies. These changes, coupled with high rents, income disparity and politicians rendering the problem invisible through political rhetoric, have, according to Schwartz-Nobel, exacerbated the hunger crisis. With equal parts outrage and compassion, she emphasizes the effects of hunger on the health of the entire nation and calls for awareness, action and above all a change of political heart. "This silent American epidemic is caused by people, by acts of man, not acts of God or nature." Shocking, informative and often devastating, this is a vital report on the politics of hunger and the silent Americans who are its victims. Agent, Ellen Levine. (Nov. 12)
Forecast:Readers who appreciated Barbara Ehrenreich's
Nickel and Dimed are a target audience for this account of the have-nots in America.
