The Years That Matter Most by Paul Tough

THE YEARS THAT MATTER MOST by Paul Tough has been generating quite a bit news lately. Please NOTE that Paul Tough will be a FAN (Family Action Network) speaker at 7:00pm on Monday, Sept. 16 at the Cornog Auditorium on our Northfield campus; more details here.   

Tough is known for his earlier best-selling work, How Children Succeed, and he contributes regularly to The New York Times, such as with this recent and very popular article: “What College Admissions Offices Really Want” which itself is adapted from this new book where Tough writes about “How College Makes or Breaks Us,” compiling anecdotes and statistics.  He begins the book with a student waiting to hear admissions decisions from Princeton and University of Pennsylvania who says, “It feels like everything is depending on this. Which sounds dramatic, I know. But it’s true.” That emotion is certainly consistent with attitudes from our students and some parents, too. Tough empathizes and goes on to argue that “in sharp contrast to other ages and other cultures, mobility in the United States today depends, in large part, on what happens to individuals during a relatively brief period in late adolescence and early adulthood.” He outlines the studies which Raj Chetty has conducted about social mobility and the role of college.  One point I found particularly interesting was Tough’s summary that “in prewar [WWII] America, it may have taken pluck and elbow grease [i.e., entrepreneurship] to rise above your birth, but in postwar America, what it usually took was a college degree.” What about the future? Is this situation changing yet again in the 21st century?   

Tough also offers an entire chapter on fitting in, describing the experiences of first generation students at Princeton, Amherst and elsewhere. He later addresses the Graduation Gap, plus feelings of belonging and inclusion in a chapter titled “Staying In.” Tough describes a variety of higher education programs and approaches in a very engaging and thought-provoking manner. He moves between individual stories to a societal lens, looking, for example, at the role of the federal government and contrasting proposals from FDR and the Obama White House. I have already been recommending this new book to teachers, parents, and administrators, including our Post-High School Counselors. It is fascinating. Student researchers will appreciate the over 30 pages of notes and useful index. THE YEARS THAT MATTER MOST received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

Added: here is a video of his interview (aired Sept. 13 and lasting about 10 minutes) on PBS NewsHour:

Heartland by Sarah Smarsh

HEARTLAND by Sarah Smarsh is a text I have been looking forward to reading, particularly because several teachers are requesting that we look for a text which could update Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed.  Smarsh subtitles her work “A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in The Richest Country on Earth” and explores “what it means to be a poor child in a rich country founded on the promise of equality.”  She addresses the concept of ‘white working class,’ saying “the experience it describes contains both racial privilege and economic disadvantage, which can exist simultaneously. … Wealthy white people, in particular, seemed to want to distance themselves from our place and our truth. … [Yet,] if a person could go to work every day and still not be able to pay the bills and the reason wasn’t racism, what less articulated problem was afoot?”

Smarsh’s work is emotional and heartfelt.  She writes eloquently of different Americas and different understandings, but it did not have the immediate impact of Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, portions of which some classes have successfully incorporated into recent projects. Others have tried Desmond’s Evicted or Moore’s The South Side due to their respective Midwest and Chicago connections. I am still looking for something at a slightly lower reading level and welcome any suggestions. 

HEARTLAND, too, deserves an audience and could possibly work as a Junior Theme text. It is longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly.

Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Appearing on the recommended LibraryReads list in July, FRUIT OF THE DRUNKEN TREE by Ingrid Rojas Contreras is a work of literary fiction which may also appeal to teens due to the age of some of the characters involved and to the setting in 1990s Bogotá with threats from drug lords like Pablo Escobar, kidnappings, and car bomb violence. Rojas Contreras tells the story in alternating first person chapters of Chula Santiago, a seven-year-old girl at the novel’s opening, and Petrona Sanchez, her family’s maid. Chula has led a sheltered middle class life, lives in a gated community, and is especially naïve at first in contrast to teenaged Petrona who must work to support her family living in the slums. This debut author has crafted a story of female empowerment and coming of age which has drawn comparisons to Isabelle Allende and praise from both Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez:

 
“When women tell stories, they are finally at the center of the page. When women of color write history, we see the world as we have never seen it before. In Fruit of the Drunken Tree, Ingrid Rojas Contreras honors the lives of girls who witness war. Brava! I was swept up by this story.” --SANDRA CISNEROS, author of THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET

"A coming of age story, an immigrant story, a thrilling mystery novel, thoroughly lived and felt—this is an exciting debut novel that showcases a writer already in full command of her powers." --JULIA ALVAREZ, author of IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES
 

The New York Times review described this novel as filled with “vividly specific details .... sensitive and thoughtful.” FRUIT OF THE DRUNKEN TREE received starred review from both Booklist and Library Journal.