Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope

by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, 321 pages, Random House, 2020
Reviewed by Ken Bilderback, March 31, 2020

From our bedroom window we can see Nicholas Kristof's childhood home (his mother still lives there). The store on the cover of his new book is about six miles from here on Highway 47, which also is the main drag through Gaston. The stories of rural poverty in his book are common where we live, but no worse than in every state. While cities continue to rise, rural America remains in steady decline and most rural Americans continue to vote for politicians and policies that contribute to that decline. If there is a heartening note in this book it's that kids in a tiny town still can reach for hope. If you continue about three blocks past that store and turn right, you'll see the childhood home of Beverly Cleary. She and Kristof are evidence that imagination and education can transcend poverty more effectively than hard work. That's sad, because there are a lot more hard workers out there than there are literary geniuses.