Twenty-five years ago, an elementary school teacher in the Bronx had a vision: No bright, determined, spirited child should be left behind because of the circumstances of race or poverty. Out of that vision, Prep for Prep was born, to identify gifted children and provide them access to a first-rate education. Thousands of these students have graduated from America's most demanding universities and gone on to become leaders in their communities. Thirty-five of them have written about the experience - an experience that changed their lives. Their stories offer indisputable proof that education empowers people to do great things

The Health and Human Services poverty line for a three-person family in America is $11,8oo in annual income. One in every five American children is growing up in poverty. What does child poverty mean for the economic and societal future of our country? The Children's Defense Fund, widely considered the most powerful force for children in America, has assembled expert and ground-breaking information on how poverty affects health, childhood deaths, low birth weight, and injury; on the insidious connections between low family income and learning disabilities; on links between poverty, abuse, and neglect and self-esteem; and much more. "Wasting America's Future" is the crucial citizen's handbook as we continue the national debate on welfare reform.

This book is divided into 12 sections, each highlighting a goal that any child can aspire to achieve, such as being honest and telling the truth. Edelman encourages children to take responsibility for the kind of people they are and will become. Illustrations.

Throughout her life and work, Marian Wright Edelman has been at the heart of this cantury's most dramatic civil rights and child advocacy struggles. In this stirring, heartfelt memoir she pays tribute to the extrordinary mentors who helped light her way including Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Fannie Lou Hamer, and William Slaone Coffin. She celebrates the lives of her parents and the great Black Women of Bennetsville, South Carolina- Miz Tee, Miz Lucy, Miz Kate-who gave her love and guidance in her youth, as well as the many teachers and figures who inspired her education at Spelman College and empowered her early as an activist in the 1960's.

Illustrated with many of the author's personal photographs, Lanterns also includes a "Parents' Pledge" and "Twenty-Five More Lessons for Life" to guide, protect, and love our children every day so that they will become, in Edelman's moving vision, the healing agents for national transformation.

Whether a parent or pastor, child advocate or Christian educator, professional or volunteer working with children, we yearn for both comfort and challenge, vision and validation, hope and help as we seek to make a difference in the lives of children. In Hope for the Future, Shannon Daley-Harris draws from her twenty-four years of work with the Children's Defense Fund to offer twelve meditations for those working to create a better world for our children. Each meditation focuses on passages of Scripture and weaves together moving stories of children, startling statistics about the challenges facing children, and inspiring examples from other movements and faithful leaders that came before us. Questions for faithful response after each meditation will prompt further reflection and action. This inspirational book can be used as a devotional, in Bible study discussion, or during a social action committee's discernment.

Too many American families-unstable, broken, often poor-are in serious peril, and both the reality of the situation and the myths obscuring that reality call for attention and swift action. In this most incisive analysis of the parlous state of the family today, Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, charts what is happening, exposes myths, and sets a bold agenda to strengthen families and protect children. In brilliant strokes and with abundant detail, Edelman describes family conditions over a generation-the rising curve of teenage pregnancy, the overwhelming joblessness of young blacks, the trend toward single-parent households, the increase in hungry and neglected children. Dispelling common assumptions about these bleak phenomena, she shows that the birth rate for black unmarried women is stabilizing while that for unmarried whites continues to rise, that Aid to Dependent Children does not cause teenage pregnancy or births, and that the child poverty rate has increased two-thirds for whites in recent years, as opposed to one-sixth for black children. Overall, whites are losing ground faster than blacks. Speaking for a growing number of social commentators, she finds the key to explain the rising proportion of births to single black mothers: a lost generation of fathers-young black males unable to marry and support a family, jobless from lack of education and training. What can be done? Edelman links the family and child poverty crisis to the fragile and ephemeral commitment of government to assist the needy. She suggests establishing a partnership between government, the private sector, and the black community to ensure children food, clothing, housing, medical care, and education. "Preventive investment strategies"-providing health, nutrition, and child care, raising the minimum wage, preventing teenage pregnancies, and opening up educational and employment opportunities for heads of families-will benefit us all. A passionate call to act now, to give real meaning to traditional American instincts for decency, this book is essential reading for everyone committed to preserving the nation's future.