A Minor Revolution

A revelatory investigation into how America is failing its children, and an urgent manifesto on why helping them is the best way to improve all of our lives-from the New York Times bestselling author of Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice

At the dawn of the twentieth century, a bright new age for children appeared on the horizon, with progress on ending child labor, providing public education, ensuring food and drug safety, combating abuse and neglect, and creating a juvenile justice system. But a hundred years on, the promised light has not arrived. Today, more than eleven million American children live in poverty and more than four million lack health insurance. Each year, we prosecute tens of thousands of kids as adults, while our schools crumble. We deny young people any political power, while we forgo meaningful action on the issues that matter most to them: gun violence, racism, inequality, and climate change.

With compelling real-life stories, law professor Adam Benforado fashions a vivid and intimate portrait of what's at stake. We are there when three-year-old Ariel is placed in an orphanage after her parents are locked away for transporting marijuana; when thirteen-year-old Harold first gazes in disbelief upon the immaculate green lawn of an elite private school, after a childhood of rusted chain link and asphalt play yards; when seventeen-year-old Wylie is hit with a paddle by his public-school principal as punishment for taking a moment of silence to protest gun violence.

The root cause of nearly every major challenge we face-from crime to poor health to poverty-can be found in our mistreatment of children. And we all pay the cost when we ignore the evidence on the value of early intervention, investment, and empowerment. But in that sobering truth is also the key to effectively changing our fate as a nation.

Drawing on the latest scientific research into the remarkable capabilities and crucial needs of young people, A Minor Revolution offers a bold vision for the future. We must put children first, in our budgets and policies, in developing products and enacting laws, in our families and communities. Childhood is the window of opportunity for all of us.