Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough

From the Publisher

A page-turning dispatch from inside the most daring and
potentially transformative social experiment of our time

Geoffrey Canada is a driven, brilliant crusader for children whose
bold approach to inner-city poverty has been called by Barack
Obama "an all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort that is literally saving
a generation of children." Canada's radical new idea: if you really want
to change the lives of poor children, you have to change everything --
their schools, their families, their neighborhoods -- all at once.

Paul Tough gained exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to Geoffrey
Canada as the Harlem Children's Zone grew to become a $58-million-a-
year organization, encompassing 97 city blocks and reaching more
than 7,000 children. In Tough's inspired portrait, sure to be as deeply
influential as Tracy Kidder's of Paul Farmer, Canada shares center stage
with the parents and children of Harlem as they hopefully, anxiously
enter a "conveyor belt" of integrated programs, from Baby College to
Harlem Gems to Promise Academy.

There's Victor Boria, nineteen, who enters Baby College on the
verge of breaking up with his pregnant teenage girlfriend -- and then,
nine weeks later, proposes to her onstage in front of a jubilant crowd.
And there's Wilma Jure, waiting and praying that her four-year-old
niece, whose mother is homeless, will win a spot in Canada's new
kindergarten class. Finally,Tough vividly describes Canada's passion
for change and how it is playing out in real time -- as educators and
policymakers from across the country keenly watch. WhateverIt Takes
is a tour de force of suspenseful and brilliantly informed reporting.

Publishers Weekly

New York Times journalist Tough profiles educational visionary Geoffrey Canada, whose Harlem Children's Zone-currently serving more than 7,000 children and encompassing 97 city blocks-represents an audacious effort to end poverty within underserved communities. Canada's radical experiment is predicated upon changing everything in these communities-creating an interlocking web of services targeted at the poorest and least likely to succeed children: establishing programs to prepare and support parents, a demanding k-8 charter school and a range of after-school programs for high school students. Tough adeptly integrates the intensely personal stories of the staff, students and teachers of the Children's Zone with expert opinions and the broiling debates over poverty, race and education. The author's admiration for Canada and his "social experiment" is obvious yet tempered by journalistic restraint as he summarizes the current understanding of the causes of poverty and academic underperformance-and their remedies. Smoothly narrated, affecting and heartening, this book gives readers a solid look at the problems facing poor communities and their reformers, as well as good cause to be optimistic about the future. (Sept.)

Kirkus Reviews

New York Times Magazine editor Tough profiles an ambitious effort to simultaneously address the seemingly eternal societal problems of poverty, class stratification, educational underachievement and racial discrimination. Frustrated by the limited number of people he could help in his job at a nonprofit organization providing services for at-risk youth, Geoffrey Canada in 1999 founded a large-scale initiative eventually dubbed the Harlem Children's Zone. He believed that to truly make a difference in a disadvantaged community, he must provide comprehensive services to residents from birth (or earlier) until death. With money raised privately as well as from government entities, Canada formulated programs providing prenatal care, instruction in parenting skills, early childhood education, K-12 schooling and help with the college-application process. The breadth and depth of his vision was either breathtaking or breathtakingly impractical, depending on your point of view. The author, though obviously an admirer, delineates the problems with Canada's program theory and its implementation as well as the strengths. While doing so, he moves seamlessly among three areas, situating accounts of Canada's life and policies within the larger context of previous movements to alleviate the consequences of poverty, class and race. Tough shows even the most naive reader how difficult it is to grapple with the question of how to take an entire community of mostly disadvantaged children and mostly undereducated parents without financial resources and transform them-or at least the children as they grow-into fully functioning members of the middle class. To the extent that Canada is succeeding, the authorattributes a portion of the victory to his ability to appeal to donors and volunteers across the political spectrum. Neither Democrats nor Republicans nor independents can articulate sound reasons to oppose this visionary socioeconomic experiment. Outstanding literary nonfiction, distinguished by in-depth reporting, compelling writing and deep thinking. Agent: David McCormick/Collins McCormick

Product Details

• ISBN: 0618569898
  
• ISBN-13: 9780618569892
• Format: Hardcover, 304pp
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
• Pub. Date: September 2008
• Sales Rank: 28,850