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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 livesfrom the New York Times bestselling author of Unfair The New Science of Criminal Injustice

Compelling anextremely sympathetic and worthyattempt to protect kids Benforado has written a book that reads like a manifesto His ideas arebold to the point and ambitiousThe Atlantic

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 combating indigence promoting wellness 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 thousands of kids as adults while our schools crumble We deny young people any political power while we fail to act on the issues that matter most to them racism inequality and climate change

Through unforgettable stories law professor Adam Benforado draws a vivid portrait of our neglect We are there when Ariel is placed in an orphanage after her parents are locked away for transporting marijuana when Harold first gazes in disbelief upon the immaculate lawn of an elite private school after a childhood of asphalt play yards when Wylie is hit with a paddle by his publicschool principal as punishment for taking a moment of silence to protest gun violence When Tyler runs for governor at age seventeen we are also there to witness the extraordinary capacities of young people

Our disregard for childrens rights is not simply a moral problem its also an economic and social one The root cause of nearly every major challenge we facefrom crime to poor health to unemploymentcan be found in our mistreatment of kids But in that sobering truth is also the key to changing our fate as a nation

Drawing on the latest research on the value of early intervention investment and empowerment A Minor Revolution makes the urgent case for putting children firstin our budgets and policies in how we develop products and enact laws and in our families and communities Childhood is the window of opportunity for all of us