Desperate poverty and social injustice
The central idea from the premise of this reporting and essay work seems to be that, to those of us who don't suffer chronically from poverty, addiction, violence, or paranoia, it's often easy to forget that other people do experience those frustrations. That implies another thematic layer as well, the layer of social justice. This is implied in the premise, because we know that there are many who are well equipped to help to desperately poor in some way, but without being exposed to the reality of the situation, perhaps there are well-meaning people who never get the chance to see or understand how serious the social brokenness really is in today's society.
Innocence and experience
The two children in the story, Lafeyette and Pharoah, are the children that the title refers to by saying, There Are No Children Here. The title is pointing to this thematic idea, that because they have been exposed to so much mental anguish and experience, they aren't innocent and naive anymore. Although other kids their age are having fun and playing, Pharoah and Lafeyette already know too much about life's pain and cruelty to be light-hearted or free. This is a thematic picture of adult reality affecting a young psychology.
Trauma, tragedy, and brokenness
There is no getting around it—this story is the story of very broken people, damaged by the chronic ailments of their own sustained emotional abuse from their parents, combined with extreme poverty, combined with the added frustration and pain of addiction to hard street drugs—they know what it means to be at rock bottom. The question of the book therefore, is whether their pain, trauma, and tragedy have been for nothing. That's why the book focuses on the mother and her sons, because she has given up her hopes of a better life for herself, but she wants to do anything she can to help the boys to succeed in life.
