Rating: 
Summary: What a JOKE!
Review: Save your money, but more importantly SAVE YOUR TIME!I would have rather gone to the doctor for a proctology exam! This was probably the MOST OVERRATED BOOK I HAVE VER READ!
Rating: 
Summary: Bad journalism
Review: This truly is terrible journalism. For one, Ron Suskind never even alludes to the fact that he was following Cedric around through all these experiences and sitting in the corner of his dorm room watching him and taking notes. Secondly, he doesn't even muse what kind of effect this could have had on Cedric's actions and the story itself. Suskind clearly had a vision of what he wanted this book to be when he set out to write it and wasn't going to let facts get in the way of that. It is a real travesty that he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for this piece of fiction.
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Summary: A Wonderful Read Of Great Importance
Review: This book is the antidote to the drive-by, dishonest reporting of a Jason Blair, Janet Cooke, or Mike Barnicle that has so discredited the journalist as social observer. Ron Susskind has written an exhaustively researched and lyrically powerful book of great breadth and subtle profundity. After four years of at least intermittent research, he has captured the internal essence and the external behavior of a cast of at least twelve different characters, the most important of whom is our hero, Cedrick Jennings, but which also includes his mother, his preacher, his father, and some of his friends and acquaintances at Ballou High School and then at Brown. Just the description of Jennings' afternoon with Justice Clarence Thomas or his interactions with the sixties radical Bernadine Dohrn and her son Zayd are worth the price of the book! More important, though, is Susskind's graphic description of the devastating chasm which separates the black ghetto kid and his world from that of the privileged Ivy League, a chasm which affirmative action only belatedly and inadequately begins to address.
Rating: 
Summary: Civics book review
Review: This book is about a young man named Cedric Jenings, who was striving for success. The book is non-fiction. It is based on a true story that grew out of a series of articles written by the author. Cedric, the book's protagonist, had a rough childhood because his father was not around. On top of that, he went to a really bad school. Cedric went to a school where most of the kids did not care about getting good grades or doing well. Cedric was one of the few students who earned honors and really cared about his grades. However, Cedric had to pay a price for doing well in school. He was teased mercilessly. For instance, after he received recognition for academic honors during a school award assembly, he was booed and called a geek. The only thing that wouold keep Cedric going was the motivation from his loving mother.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story, but misses the big picture
Review: This book is well deserving of its Pulitzer Prize. The story is compelling, having you on the edge of your seat rooting for Cedric to 'make-it' in the world.
Having been fortunate to have met the author at a conference, I can attest to his honesty, his insightful eye, and his passion. He truely has a gift for telling a story. The opening gym scene, and the dramatic graduation scene are unforgettable.
Yet, even though it is a wonderful book (that you should purchase TODAY), it misses the bigger picture of what is going on in Cedric's school: That thousands of Cedric's fellow students are given no opportunity to 'make it'. It tells the story of the ONE who makes it, and ignores the THOUSANDS of others who are forced to go to school in a horrible environment, with low-paid over-worked teachers and a school district that fails. It practically ignores the many, many students who are talented, but find no arena (except maybe in dealing) in which to use their talents.
Bottom line: Great story that misses the point that people need to hear.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Book
Review: I have just finished this book for work, where we were considering it for a text to use with all people (students, faculty, and staff) in our college community. This is an excellent, thought-provoking work. This is a book about the hideous chasm between America's inner city schools and the opportunities that many people believe all Americans have. (I would add that there are chasms just as broad and deep between weour conception of the opportunties Americans have and our very poor, rural schools as well. ) Cedric Jennings intentionally refuses to take a large part in the world that surrounds Washington D. C's Ballou High School (spending his time with the TV instead of venturing into the drug and violence filled world outside his apartment) but his life at school does not prepare him for the world of Ivy League colleges, where he aspires to go. One of the most poignant parts of this book for me was Cedric's trip through the Brown University Bookstore, as a new freshman, where he realizes that he does not recognize the authors or subjects of textbook that are suppposed to be easily recognizeable for most well-prepared Americans. He might as well be in an uncharted land. This is also a revealing book about the ways that our society maintains class differences. The power of organized religion as a means for maintaining a social status quo is particularly interesting. This is a book that deals with very serious issues but also reads like a novel. Ron Suskind has done a wonderful job giving us lots of things to think about.
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Summary: The Overwhelming Deficits Created By Poverty
Review: This is a beautiful story of one of the gems of the inner city, fighting against all odds to earn an education of value in an environment devoid of resources, both financial and emotional. In spite of the fact that Cedric Jennings is at the top of his class at Ballou High School in D. C., he is woefully underprepared when arriving as a freshman at Brown. This is not soley due to the fact that his high school is inadequate. There were many dedicated teachers provided good instruction to the kids at Ballou. The social and cultural deficits of poverty transcend schools. Cedric's poverty was devastating. Many times he and his mother were evicted for failure to pay the rent. His father was a jailed drug dealer. Many meals for Jennings were "OOdles of Noodles."
Cedric had an academic drive like no other child I have ever seen or read about, yet his SATs were a mere 960 combined. What chance does the average ghetto kid have if this is what Cedric can do? Today's education reform continues to damage kids like Cedric. It's a One-size-fits-all testing scheme that ignores the devastation of poverty. A HOPE IN THE UNSEEN should be a call to policy makers to start working on social programs that will eradicate poverty, instead of "reforming" schools with tests that put more ghetto kids on the streets.
Rating:
Summary: A good read for anyone
Review: I actually just gor back from a presentation given by Ron Suskind for one of my classes at college. This novel was one of the better books I have been forced to read in school. The book seemed to get lost in itself at the end but regardlesss it shows that hope is all you need to survive. I would reccommend this to anyone who wants to read an uplifting story with a powerful message.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely wonderful
Review: I was both touched and amazed. I too attended Ballou High School about 15 years before Cedric Jennings. The school was rough, but nothing compared to what Cedric described and survived. I highly recommend this book to every inner city teenager as encouragement and as testimony of what faith is really all about.
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational Story
Review: What a great book! It was recommended to me by a teacher. I'm really glad I read it. It's amazing how this author, who is white, can get into the mind of a black youth. He did a great job. I can identify with Cedric since I also a minority and urban, if not inner-city, youth trying to get into Brown U. Sometimes I find the constant racial labeling of people annoying but it is a theme in the book. Also, I find the homophobia of Cedric a little disappointing. But then again, his background did not prepare him for that and he had strong religious beliefs. At least he was trying to adjust to the idea. Other than that, the book is very worthy.
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