These two special issues of "Applied Developmental Science" include eight major studies of the impacts of the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks on children, youth, and their parents. Issue 1 includes a report of the impact of September 11th on New York City youth in comparison with that of everyday violence, as well as three studies which demonstrate the impact of the attacks on the metal health and coping strategies of adolescents throughout the country, despite being physically distant from the event.
Issue 2 includes a study of separation anxiety in school age children in New York City following the attacks, the results from two national surveys of parents' roles in helping children respond to or process the attacks, and a study of the impact of such a "distant trauma" on rural youth.

In "Lives on the Line," Martha Shirk, Neil G. Bennett, and J. Lawrence Aber meld affecting personal profiles with sophisticated demographic analysis to create a vivid portrait of what life is like for more than 14 million American children growing up below the poverty line.In personal profiles of ten families across the nation, from a Pacific Islander family in Hawaii to a homeless family in a wealthy New York City suburb, award-winning journalist Martha Shirk depicts the realities of life for children below the poverty line. She takes readers deep into the lives of families in poverty--lives sometimes marked by childhood abuse, parental loss, and long-term violence--and with each family explores their prospects for moving above the poverty threshold. Along the way, Shirk finds amazing resilience, resourcefulness, and strength of spirit in many of these poor families.Neil G. Bennett, demographic research director for the highly respected National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University (NCCP), shatters many commonly held stereotypes by analyzing Census Bureau data to show which American children are most likely to be poor. He reports, for instance, that over 60 percent of poor young children have at least one employed parent, that most poor young children live in suburban or rural areas, and that a parent's graduation from high school is insufficient to insure against poverty. Among his most startling findings are that in the last two decades, the Young Child Poverty Rate grew significantly faster in the suburbs than in urban or rural areas, and that it grew much faster among whites than among blacks.J. Lawrence Aber, the director of NCCP and a nationally recognizedexpert in child development and social policy, describes the effects of poverty on child development and showcases proven strategies for preventing or reducing child poverty. He also shows us that it is in our national self-interest to address the problem of child poverty by making a smart investment in America's future.As a powerful portrait of the effects of poverty on America's children and families, "Lives on the Line" narrows the gap between "them" and "us." It will change the way you think about the poor.

Perhaps the most alarming phenomenon in American cities has been the transformation of many neighborhoods into isolated ghettos where poverty is the norm and violent crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock births, and soaring school dropout rates are rampant. Public concern over these destitute areas has focused on their most vulnerable inhabitants children and adolescents. How profoundly does neighborhood poverty endanger their well-being and development? Is the influence of neighborhood more powerful than that of the family? Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children approaches these questions with an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into the effect of community poverty on children's physical health, cognitive and verbal abilities, educational attainment, and social adjustment. This two-volume set offers the most current research and analysis from experts in the fields of child development, social psychology, sociology and economics. Drawing from national and city-based sources, Volume I reports the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between children and community. As the essays demonstrate, poverty entails a host of problems that affects the quality of educational, recreational, and child care services.Poor neighborhoods usually share other negative features particularly racial segregation and a preponderance of single mother families that may adversely affect children. Yet children are not equally susceptible to the pitfalls of deprived communities. Neighborhood has different effects depending on a child's age, race, and gender, while parenting techniques and a family's degree of community involvement also serve as mitigating factors."