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46th out of 133 books
—
47 voters
A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League
by
Ron Suskind
It is 1993, and Cedric Jennings is a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate is well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boast an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric has almost no friends. He eats lunch in a classroom most days,...more
Paperback, 373 pages
Published
May 4th 1999
by Broadway
(first published 1998)
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This was one of the last books I read before I moved away from Washington, D.C. It's signed by the author with a nice little note. I was working for a teacher's union and volunteering at an elementary school in Northeast D.C. and this book really hit home. Everything Ron Suskind wrote about Cedric Jennings I saw first-hand with some of the students I worked with. It really got me thinking about the failures of affirmative action and how much further we need to go to ensure that all children have...more
The five stars go equally to Ron Suskind the author and Cedric Jennings, the hero of the book. As any other review will tell you it is a story about a boy from the ghetto who somehow managed to learn something in his gang-infested high school (think Gangsta's Paradise) and made it to one of the Ivy League universities.
If you think this is some sort of Chicken Soup for the White Liberal Soul then you couldn't be more wrong. Basically the conclusion is: shit is bad, real bad. The challenges that...more
If you think this is some sort of Chicken Soup for the White Liberal Soul then you couldn't be more wrong. Basically the conclusion is: shit is bad, real bad. The challenges that...more
A Hope in the Unseen
Ron Suskind
390pp.
Broadway Books
ISBN 0-7679-0126-6
Do you know who you are? Do you know what you want to accomplish in life? In this book Cedric Jennings struggles with answering those two questions. He is an African American struggling with finding his identity. His determination pushes him forward and his determination and hard worked pushed him to become a student at Brown University, an Ivy League school. Cedric’s friends, the few that he has, tells him that he is not fit...more
Ron Suskind
390pp.
Broadway Books
ISBN 0-7679-0126-6
Do you know who you are? Do you know what you want to accomplish in life? In this book Cedric Jennings struggles with answering those two questions. He is an African American struggling with finding his identity. His determination pushes him forward and his determination and hard worked pushed him to become a student at Brown University, an Ivy League school. Cedric’s friends, the few that he has, tells him that he is not fit...more
Kinga recs:
The five stars go equally to Ron Suskind the author and Cedric Jennings, the hero of the book. As any other review will tell you it is a story about a boy from the ghetto who somehow managed to learn something in his gang-infested high school (think Gangsta's Paradise) and made it to one of the Ivy League universities.
If you think this is some sort of Chicken Soup for the White Liberal Soul then you couldn't be more wrong. Basically the conclusion is: shit is bad, real bad. The chall...more
The five stars go equally to Ron Suskind the author and Cedric Jennings, the hero of the book. As any other review will tell you it is a story about a boy from the ghetto who somehow managed to learn something in his gang-infested high school (think Gangsta's Paradise) and made it to one of the Ivy League universities.
If you think this is some sort of Chicken Soup for the White Liberal Soul then you couldn't be more wrong. Basically the conclusion is: shit is bad, real bad. The chall...more
The main idea of the book is how a young boy that went to Ballou senior high school suffered without his father. But his mother was their taking care of him. when Cedric was little his father had told his mother that she shouldn't have him in the book it quoted"its either the baby or me" and when Cedric father had said that the mother had chose to have the baby and leave him . throughout the book Cedric father wasn't their for Cedric. Cedric father was in and out of jail because of him doing dru...more
I picked this book up from the stairs of my parents' house. I think it was my brother's freshman English book, but I simply needed something to read on the plane ride back to Vegas.
I was at first mesmerized by the writing. It was descriptive! It was interesting! It sounded like an author had written it! Turns out, an author did write it. I have a snobbish aversion to reading memoirs by non-writers, so I was happy to realize Ron Suskind wrote the book about Cedric Jennings.
After the first few c...more
I was at first mesmerized by the writing. It was descriptive! It was interesting! It sounded like an author had written it! Turns out, an author did write it. I have a snobbish aversion to reading memoirs by non-writers, so I was happy to realize Ron Suskind wrote the book about Cedric Jennings.
After the first few c...more
This NPR "You must read this" piece is why I picked up thie book:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...
An excerpt from the above story summarizes how I felt about the book:
Suskind manages to avoid the icky paternalism that privileged white journalists can easily display toward the poor and minorities. He knows better than to treat Cedric as a specimen; rather, he makes sure that we all become him. The book is nonfiction, yet packs the emotional wallop of a great epic novel. And though there's...more
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...
An excerpt from the above story summarizes how I felt about the book:
Suskind manages to avoid the icky paternalism that privileged white journalists can easily display toward the poor and minorities. He knows better than to treat Cedric as a specimen; rather, he makes sure that we all become him. The book is nonfiction, yet packs the emotional wallop of a great epic novel. And though there's...more
The main idea of A Hope in The Unseen was about a boy who is making a tough transition from regular high school to an ivy league school Brown University. Cedric Jennings a freshman is already putting all his classes pass/fail and on top of that he has problems making friends. Cedric has one friend and they bond like two peas in a pod his name is Zayd, Zayd is a cool relaxing guy who loves hip-hop just like Cedric. But Cedric has problems with school, and with friends so they get into an argument...more
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Cedric Jennings, an honors student in the inner city of Washington, D.C., who has high academic aspirations. There are a variety of opponents and difficulties that Cedric faces in his quest for academic achievement, including inner city peers who deride his ambition, poor educational standards in the inner city, and people in higher education who do not understand the unique problems facing lower class students. During his graduation speech, he generalizes about these enemies and calls them Drea...more
Just finished rereading A Hope in the Unseen in advance of discussing it with my AP students, and I am blown away by its quality and depth. Several students have already told me how much they're enjoying it--though maybe that's because our last read was Hamlet!--and I am hoping the discussion will be excellent.
The story of Cedric's journey from the inner city of DC to the lawns of Brown University is a fascinating one on many levels, and the book is worth reading even tho it takes place in the...more
The story of Cedric's journey from the inner city of DC to the lawns of Brown University is a fascinating one on many levels, and the book is worth reading even tho it takes place in the...more
I thought it was pretty interesting to see a liberal, wealthy, white institution from the view of a rather conservative, poor African-American. However, the book does not get much more compelling than just pretty interesting. In fact, completely against the intended purpose, this book has only made me dislike the idea of affirmative action more. Not only has this proven that even the very brightest poor have an incredibly hard time at highly selective institutions (in fact, these colleges are mu...more
A Hope in the Unseen was one such book that I had a tremendous time reading. The book chronicles the life of Cedric Jennings, an African-American teenager who starts off in the “ghetto”. The book showcases his steady maturity and his belief in the unseen that drives him forward. Cedric emerges from the ghetto and on to the campus of Brown University, an Ivy League School. I can relate to this book in many ways, because the book starts off in Cedric’s junior year of high school, a stage that I am...more
I recently reread this excellent book. It offers a first person account of a young man's path from a broken inner city school to the ivy league. Well worth a read for anyone interested in issues of diversity and education.
The main idea of the book is a boy having struggles at home then overcoming them by going to college.A boy name Cedric has good grades and while being at home he doesn't really have what everyone has. Then while doing all of his work it pays off because he gets scholarships and gets to attend the college of his choice. Then cedric meets this boy while in college name Zayd and they become the best of friends . Then cedric and zayd start to beef because a racist fact cedric says out his mouth. Lat...more
I heard about this book on NPR as a "book to return to". http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...
First published in 1997, it has been updated (2005)
Suskind, a white journalist for the Wall Street Journal, follows the life of D.C. Cedric Jennings through his high school years at Ballou and his freshman year at Brown. This is a story I thought I knew (I did teach at Whitman for many years), smart ghetto boy trying to survive the "hood", but Suskind's insight really helped me to better understand...more
First published in 1997, it has been updated (2005)
Suskind, a white journalist for the Wall Street Journal, follows the life of D.C. Cedric Jennings through his high school years at Ballou and his freshman year at Brown. This is a story I thought I knew (I did teach at Whitman for many years), smart ghetto boy trying to survive the "hood", but Suskind's insight really helped me to better understand...more
Wow. A really inspiring book about a kid who nearly all by himself goes from a forsaken inner-city high school in Southeast D.C. to Brown University. An amazing piece of journalism, with a ton of heart.
This book makes the ghetto become very real and very scary! The first two chapters I thought Cedric, the 16 yr old scholar & protagonist, was going to get shot at any minute and didn't know if I wanted to keep reading. (If I had read the fly page first I would have known he survived and I would not have been nearly so nervous!) This book has great insights about how good intentions can create dangerous situations, i.e. making honor roll students come up on stage to receive a $100 reward for...more
This is the story of Cedric Jennings, his years at Ballou High School in Washington, D. C., and his first two years at Brown University in Providence, RI. Suskind had written articles in the “New Yorker” ab out Ballou and Cedric, an outstanding student, and decided to follow Jennings to college, and enlarge the articles to a book. Cedric and his mother lived together in a rented apartment in D.C., where his mother worked for the government. His father, not married to his mother, spent a great de...more
Very well written, with remarkably (still) new insights about race, class, and education. I was surprised and pleased to find this book so compelling.
This book written by the Pulitzer prize winning Ron Suskind is a piece of literary genius. About the struggles of Cedric Jennings through high school and his freshman year at prestigious Brown University.
This masterpiece was chosen as one of the best books of the year in 1998 by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Monthly, and Booklist. Cadric Jennings lives in a very tough neighborhood in Washington D.C. and goes to Ballou High School where only 80 out of the 1300 kids make hono...more
This masterpiece was chosen as one of the best books of the year in 1998 by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Monthly, and Booklist. Cadric Jennings lives in a very tough neighborhood in Washington D.C. and goes to Ballou High School where only 80 out of the 1300 kids make hono...more
I liked the story, not so much the writing. I expected a more developed story and ending, but didn't realize how involved the author was in the writing the story...really involved which I was pleased with. I didn't think it was eye opening as I've had the general opinion of how the struggles of a difficult rearing have invisible barriers that can't be explained to those who haven't lived it. And I believe it is critical, for those who do rise above, to have someone influential, early on, as Cedr...more
"It is that privilege -- to be the trustee of someone's very self -- that I've sought to measure up to with each page of this book." (pg. 371)
Ron Suskind has blown me away with this book. When I first started it, I thought it was so well written that I had to goodreads and google to fact-check my original notion that it is actually non-fiction. And it is. And it is beautiful.
Cedric Jennings is real, and he deals with real things, and he does it valiantly. His story is phenomenal.
So many feeling...more
Ron Suskind has blown me away with this book. When I first started it, I thought it was so well written that I had to goodreads and google to fact-check my original notion that it is actually non-fiction. And it is. And it is beautiful.
Cedric Jennings is real, and he deals with real things, and he does it valiantly. His story is phenomenal.
So many feeling...more
I've always admired people who dream bigger than their current surroundings. Isnt that the "American Way"? This book has triumphs and heartache. It made me appreciate the journey some people have to climb and provided some insights into why fewer of us make that journey. It's been a few years since I read this book, but I've thought of it many times. The older brother's struggle made me look at the youth around me with a bit more compassiom. The place the boys would go to find a little peace in...more
How do you reach a star? You keep your eyes on it, turning neither to the right nor left, and just continue until you get there. Suskind opens the world of an inner city young man who does just that. Whether by nature or nurture, Cedric Jennings had the determination to hope that his life would not end the way it began. The book allows you to see how the real world is from Cedric's viewpoint while grazing topics such as university affirmative action quotas. Whatever side you're on, you can't hel...more
This book is about a young man's struggle to achieve his goals. From the time he was little, Cedric Knew he was destined for great things. Cedric grew up in a single parent home. Even though he didnt grow up with his father who was incarcerated his mother taught him that being a man comes from the heart and the mind and being resposible. He always put god first. His mother played the most posotive role in his life, it would be impossible for him to loose track. After working very hard and overco...more
What is most impressive about A Hope in the Unseen is Suskind's ability to turn hard journalism into a compelling narrative that reads like fiction but is faithful to the truths of his subjects' lives. I am a high school teacher who sees students who struggle with the same issues of race and class and what it means to try to break out of the rigid and defeating expectations set by the community and society. It is Cedric's strength of character and refusal to cede his morals to those around him w...more
I love the very idea of this kind of intensive journalism where an author just completely immerses themselves in someone else's existence. So I would always enjoy if for that reason. The fact that I am also fascinated by America's failing schools and the fight to escape from them definitely helped. It's also encouraging to hear that some kids, however rare, really do make it out to a better life. It helps to be reminded that it really is possible and this book does great job of showing how it's...more
This book challenged my ideas of affirmative action. It is an interesting perspective from a motivated son of a single mother who works his way out of the drug-infested and violent ghetto of his Washington D.C. neighborhood to earn a spot at an Ivy League University. He initially finds the culture of the other white and middle-class minority students completely foreign and his education preparation woefully lacking. The help that he gets, and doesn't get, along the way says a lot about what we v...more
May 06, 2012
Alexandria Baca
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Narrative journalism enthusiasts
Recommended to Alexandria by:
Jacqui Banaszynski
Ron Suskind explores the troubled state of education and racial divide in his book, “A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League,” published in 1998. Suskind, then a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for a series of articles exploring the struggles of inner-city honor students, including Cedric Jennings, in Washington, D.C. This series became the starting point for “A Hope in the Unseen,” which follows Jenning...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| African American books | 2 | 4 | Jan 28, 2013 06:49am | |
| A Hope in the Unseen | 1 | 4 | Oct 18, 2012 09:35am |
Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and best-selling author. He was the senior national affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000 and has published four books, A Hope in the Unseen, The Price of Loyalty, The One Percent Doctrine and The Way of the World. He won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his series of articles in the Wall Street Journ...more
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“You are livin’,” she says in feigned exasperation. “You just don’t see what I see. You got something special. Something you got from your ma. It’s a thing. I mean, I wish I had it. It’s this thing where you know what it’s going to take, and then you get it done. You push yourself and you get there.”
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me esta gustando esto de poder escribir en espanol y que me entiendas!!!!! como sea! cuando dices "Gangsta's Paradise" y luego miras a la port...more
Jul 06, 2012 09:32am