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 lives—from the New York Times bestselling author of Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice
“Revolutionary and accessible . . . a powerful new way to look at American society through the lens of our children.”—Heather McGhee, New York Times bestselling author of The Sum of Us
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.
With unforgettable stories, law professor Adam Benforado fashions 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 public-school dean 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 children’s rights is not simply a moral problem; it’s also an economic and social one. The root cause of nearly every major challenge we face—from crime to poor health to unemployment—can 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 first—in 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.
Hardcover | eBook | Audiobook
Published by Crown
384 Pages | 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 | ISBN 9781984823045
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Praise for A Minor Revolution
“Adam Benforado has created a powerful new way to look at American society through the lens of our children: at once our biggest assets and our most vulnerable members. He weaves compelling real-life stories with legal and economic analysis to deliver a bracing indictment of our society’s self-sabotage. He doesn’t end there, however; his final recommendations for how to change course are both revolutionary and accessible.”
— Heather McGhee, New York Times bestselling author of The Sum of Us
“An urgent call for us to rethink our societal priorities and start putting children first. Adam Benforado doesn’t just expose the wrongs done to kids around the world and in our own backyards—he offers a road map for righting them.”
— Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking
“A Minor Revolution is a major revelation. With a prosecutor’s precision and a reformer’s passion, Adam Benforado has crafted an agenda-setting book—one that offers a startling look at the present and a hopeful path for the future.”
— Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, Drive, and A Whole New Mind
“Adam Benforado’s accessible new book combines vividly written case studies with a comprehensive review of the latest scientific research to offer a simple but radical prescription for what ails America—put our kids first. It is a must-read for anyone of any political persuasion who is concerned with restoring the American dream of equal opportunity and upward mobility.”
— Robert D. Putnam, New York Times bestselling author of Our Kids
“A Minor Revolution is a gripping read and an essential companion to Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us. Adam Benforado insightfully chronicles the never-ending cycle of intergenerational harms created from our failure to prioritize children in our public policies. Yet we are left hopeful about the future because his powerfully argued reforms are within our grasp. A Minor Revolution will forever challenge the way you think about America’s treatment of her children.”
— Dorothy A. Brown, author of The Whiteness of Wealth
“Save the Children founder Eglantyne Jebb once said, ‘Humanity owes the child the best it has to give,’ not just because it was the right thing to do, but because protecting children, ensuring their health, and offering them a pathway to prosperity creates a stronger society for all of us. A century later, despite extraordinary scientific progress and even many social advances, too many children in the United States and worldwide start life behind the eight ball. Hungry. Homeless. Engaged in child labor. Incarcerated. A Minor Revolution sounds an alarm bell we all should have heard one hundred years ago. Maybe, maybe, this time we’ll listen.”
— Janti Soeripto, president and CEO of Save the Children US
“In this persuasive and wide-ranging study, [Benforado] show[s] an urgent need to ‘put children first’ . . . Deeply researched and passionately argued, this is an irrefutable call for change.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Ambitious . . . His unifying argument is anti-inertial: We don’t have to do things the way we’ve always done them; we can change the rules to put kids first in a way that will benefit us all. . . . The book blew my mind.”
— Salon
“One of the all-time best books that I have read with respect to child policy . . . informative, insightful, and powerful . . . A Minor Revolution is a must-read and a clarion call for how we should reorient our society toward the needs, concerns, best interests, and rights of children.”
— Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus on Children
“Compelling. . . . An extremely sympathetic and worthy attempt to protect kids. . . . [Benforado] has written a book that reads like a manifesto. His ideas are bold, to the point, and ambitious.”
— The Atlantic
“A thoughtful and practical manifesto for large-scale reform. . . . Benforado argues persuasively for the need to prioritize children’s welfare by the government, the law, businesses, and the community as a whole.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“This thought-provoking book poses precisely the questions a society that claims to prioritize children needs to be asking, including how can we reconcile our professed love for children with our lack of meaningful investment in their full personhood? A Minor Revolution forces us to confront the profound inconsistencies we hold about children while challenging us to not only think, but do better! No other book casts as comprehensive a net on young people. Full stop. Groundbreaking in the way it inspires us to reconsider ourselves as we also examine how we conceive of children.”
— Sacha M. Coupet, Associate Dean of Mission Innovation and Leibman Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
“A compelling, passionate call to be serious about children’s lives, A Minor Revolution asks us to literally put children and youth first. Grounded in the sobering and distressing facts of children’s lives, Benforado argues their harsh reality hurts us all. His solutions center around a series of children’s rights reflecting children’s developmental needs. By envisioning how to put children first, this roadmap for change should be essential reading for all those committed to the well-being of children to engage in policy-making, grass roots organizing and individual action.”
— Nancy E. Dowd, University of Florida Distinguished Professor and Levin Chair in Family Law (Emeritus), University of Florida Levin College of Law
“Genius is generally associated with novelty. The discoverer of a new subatomic particle, or a distant star, for example, a new deadly microbe or a means by which millions may be fed in some unseeable future. Yes, those all are fine examples of humanity’s best. But genius is not confined to the creation of the new. As often as not, the genius makes clear the obvious, calls attention to the impending, or, in the case of Adam Benforado, shines a spotlight on the good deeds we’ve long intended to get done, but have been lost in the general haste.”
— Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column
“A bracing, encyclopedically researched, surprisingly hopeful take on how we could get ourselves a better country by enshrining children’s rights in the law”
— New York Magazine
“There’s no better person to set the stage for investing in children than Adam Benforado.”
— The Perri Peltz Show
Discussion Guides
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General Discussion Guide
A discussion guide for all readers, with my top questions for getting the conversation started over the dinner table or in your book club.
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First-Year and Common Reading Guide
A guide for First-Year or Common Reading programs, with over 100 multi-part questions organized by chapter, writing prompts, and activism projects.
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Higher Education Instructor's Guide
A guide for undergraduate and graduate educators interested in using A Minor Revolution in their courses, with ideas for how to assign and teach the book, discussion questions organized by chapter, writing prompts, activism projects, and a detailed sample syllabus.
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High School Teacher's Guide
A guide for high school educators interested in using A Minor Revolution in their classrooms, with ideas for how to assign and teach the book to teenagers, discussion questions organized by chapter, writing prompts, and activism projects.
