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
Childrens 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 also 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.