I love hard-hitting, compelling narrative nonfiction, and Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott is just that. This Pulitzer winner follows 8 years of the life of a child living in poverty. Dasani and her 7 siblings live in New York City with their mother, Chanel, and Dasani’s stepfather, Supreme. At the start of the book, they all live together in one room in the now-defunct Auburn Family Residence, a homeless shelter in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Dasani is 11 years old and starting 6th grade. 

 

Andrea Elliott is a journalist, and this book started as a longform story in the New York Times. After the story’s publication, Elliott continued to follow Dasani and her family for years. 

 

Through it all, the family remains tight-knit. Dasani fiercely loves her siblings, and especially her mother, despite her flaws. This book delves into the many systems that the family must deal with in order to get services for the children. They deal with a lot. They go through a lot. The book balances the family’s story with history, sociology, and psychology that explain why some things are they way they are. The flaws in the system are numerous and the challenges faced by the family are often insurmountable, leading to accumulating traumas. 

 

Overall this is just a really good book. I’m still rooting for Dasani and her family. This book definitely changed the way I view our country’s treatment of families living in poverty. There’s so much more we could be doing to actually help people, and so many policies that cause harm and should be changed. I hope a lot of people will read this book. I listened to the audiobook and the narration by Adenrele Ojo was fantastic. If you like narrative nonfiction and unputdownable journalism, don’t skip this one.