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

This book explores Geoffrey Canada's creation of 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. The goal of the Harlem Children's Zone is to change the lives of poor children in large numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide; Canada's conclusion about this sort of change is that, in order for poor children to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, everything in their lives-- from schools to neighborhoods to the child-rearing practices of their parents-- must be changed.