Reaching Up for Manhood
Transforming the Lives of Boys in America
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
From a troubled youth navigating the mean streets of the South Bronx to an inspiring educational activist who evokes praise from the likes of President Barack Obama, Geoffrey Canada has made a remarkable personal journey that cemented his dedication to underserved youth. His award-winning work was featured in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary Waiting for “Superman,” and he has been hailed by media, activists, teachers, and national leaders. Michelle Obama called him “one of my heroes,” and Oprah Winfrey refers to him as “an angel from God.” Here, Canada draws on his years of work with inner-city youth and on his own turbulent boyhood to offer a moving and revelatory look at the little-understood emotional lives of boys. And who better for this task than the man Elizabeth Mehren of the Los Angeles Times calls “one of this country’s leading advocates for youth.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As president of New York City's Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, Canada (Fist Stick Knife Gun) has been a pioneer in providing mentorship and advancement opportunities to inner-city children. Here, he not only illuminates the problems facing urban boys but also provides practical solutions and ways to combat what he sees as a culture that mistakes violence for manliness. Although much of the book details theories for change, Canada safeguards against generalization with anecdotes about his work at Rheedlen and his childhood in the South Bronx. His youthful entanglements with drugs, alcohol and troubled kids provide a backdrop for his perceptive recommendations. Canada adopts a style close to memoir, then ties up each narrative with a general summary of what could be learned from his experience and how that lesson might be extrapolated into social policy. While he writes of unemployment problems, Canada also has some critical words about the poor work ethic and lack of commitment on the part of some inner-city boys. He offers a smart, street-level picture of what's bad about an inner-city boyhood and, more impressively, also gives us some sound advice about the hard work necessary to remedy it.
