Through the Eyes of Children: Bianca, New Orleans

Bianca AGE 9, NEW ORLEANS ^ Television comes alive for Bianca Belonga. Someday she wants to be a star like Jem and wear red earrings. For now, she imitates characters she sees on the screen.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER WAIT on a New Orleans park bench for their respective buses to arrive. Every working day, the child takes one bus to school, and the mother rides another to work. When the vehicles pull up, mother and daughter part company, as usual. But the girl realizes she has left her school books on the bench, and she runs back to retrieve them. By now the mother has boarded her own bus. With a maternal premonition of danger, the woman tries to get off.

"I could see two men jump out of a car and grab her," says the...

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