AT HOME IN THE STREET - STREET CHILDREN OF NORTHEAST BRAZIL

Through modest, sober, and honest ethnography, Hecht lays bare the received truths about the lives of Brazilian street children. This book changes the terms of the debate, asking not why there are so many homeless children in Brazil but why, given the oppressive alternative of home life in the shantytowns, there are in fact so few. Street children asked one another questions that even the most experienced researcher would be unlikely to pose. Guided by the childrenOs questions, Hecht cuts through the hysteria and hyperbole surrounding street children in Brazil.