RaveThe New York Times Book Review... clear, spare prose ... With welcome brevity, Invisible Americans stitches together much of what the lay reader needs to know about American child poverty ... I did sometimes want to get closer to the inner and outer lives of America’s poorest families. While Madrick briefly sprinkles in a few tales of individual penury, several marked by their subjects’ shame and lingering physical pain, we don’t get to know any of these people well ... But Madrick does not aspire to narrative journalism here. He is more interested in informed indignation. The reason for his outrage is clear: Ending childhood destitution was a political centerpiece of the Great Society, yet now it is rarely mentioned, especially by politicians. If our leaders absorbed this book’s urgent call, perhaps they would discuss poverty — and act to ease it — once again.
