Whatever It Takes, the new book by Paul Tough that profiles Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone, is one of the most bracing, sobering and inspiring books I've read in a while. It's the story of one man's attempt to systematically disrupt the cycle of poverty, and fundamentally alter the nature of childhood in Harlem. Fixing the schools is only a small part of the solution: Canada realized that it was also crucial to change the typical parent-child interaction, and so he developed a Baby College where new parents are given lessons on how to speak to their child in the supermarket. In other words, poverty is a culture, a contagious way of life, and not something that can be fixed with smaller class size.

Tough also deftly summarizes much of the recent work done on the cognitive neuroscience of poverty, or how our brain is changed by the details of our upbringing

(One crucial finding is that "middle-class" parents are much more verbose than parents living in poverty.