Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America
by Tough, Paul
- Used
- as new
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- As New/As New
- Seller
-
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008. First Edition. Hardcover. As New/As New. Octavo. Photograhs. A clean, unmarked and unclipped copy.
Synopsis
What would it take? That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poor children—not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children’s Zone, a ninety-seven-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America. His conclusion: if you want poor kids to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to change everything in their lives—their schools, their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing practices of their parents. Whatever It Takes is a tour de force of reporting, an inspired portrait not only of Geoffrey Canada but of the parents and children in Harlem who are struggling to better their lives, often against great odds. Carefully researched and deeply affecting, this is a dispatch from inside the most daring and potentially transformative social experiment of our time.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Alba's Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- BN019506
- Title
- Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America
- Author
- Tough, Paul
- Illustrator
- Photograhs
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- New
- Jacket Condition
- As New
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- Publisher
- Houghton Mifflin Co.
- Place of Publication
- Boston
- Date Published
- 2008
- Size
- Octavo
Terms of Sale
Alba's Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Alba's Books
Biblio member since 2020
Chicago, Illinois
About Alba's Books
In the mid '90s, Alba started getting calls from people who had a pronunciation problem. /
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/ Either way, her dad built a musty little empire with a sexy, funny, brilliant, and hard-to-pronounce name that boasted membership in the Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Association (MWABA) and exhibited at Chicago book fairs such as the famed Printer's Row. / The way he puts it:
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"Is this...Biblio...um...Biblio...die...sigh...uh?"
/ She enjoyed hearing the attempts. Her father's book business, Bibliodisia, was actually pronounced Biblio-DEE-zhee-uh. "It's a whole books and sex thing," she'd explain. "No, no, not books ABOUT sex. Books so awesome you want them like sex. Biblio plus aphrodisia equals Bibliodisia -- get it?" / Some did, some didn't.
/ Either way, her dad built a musty little empire with a sexy, funny, brilliant, and hard-to-pronounce name that boasted membership in the Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Association (MWABA) and exhibited at Chicago book fairs such as the famed Printer's Row. / The way he puts it:
"OUR STOCK IS VARIED AND OF HIGH QUALITY, COMPRISED MAINLY OF HARDCOVER FIRST EDITIONS IN THE BEST AVAILABLE CONDITION FOR THEIR AGE. OUR PRICES VARY AND ARE CONSISTENTLY LOWER THAN WHAT YOU SEE ELSEWHERE, AND WE ARE HAPPY TO CONSIDER REASONABLE OFFERS FOR OUR HIGHER-PRICED BOOKS." (He's hard-of-hearing. Also, Cuban. Alba is Cuban too so she can make that joke.)
/ When he says "our" he means himself, his wife, and his two daughters. It has grown more and more into a family business every year, and now he's nearly ready to hand the reins over to one of his daughters. (Don't worry, the other one's a school teacher.) On Biblio, Alba manages Bibliodisia's inventory and sales under the considerably less sexy, funny, brilliant and hard-to-pronounce business name of Alba's Books.
/ And so another bookseller gets her wings. / The logo's a skyline bookshelf 'cause she's so the big city girl.
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- Octavo
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