A House Alive with Words

What is it like for academically talented, poor inner-city fourteen-year-olds to go to live in a small group home and attend an elite public high school in an affluent, mostly white suburb? That is the question addressed in A House Alive with Words.

The book tells the story of eight boys who were A Better Chance Scholars along Philadelphia's Main Line. It brings to life the challenges they met being minority youth in a largely white school, being poor in an affluent community, and meeting demanding academic standards. It portrays how they adjusted to living in a group setting and how they found solace from each other on their way to getting to college and succeeding there. In voices of humor and emotion, a portrait of their lives, both their difficulties and triumphs, emerges.

Started in l963, A Better Chance is the oldest national program working to provide access to outstanding secondary schools for academically talented students of color. Currently, the program places about 500 students each year in member schools. Most of these attend independent boarding schools or independent day schools. A small proportion of the students are placed in 22 community school programs where they attend elite public high schools and live in group homes with supervising adults. A House Alive with Words is the first book to describe one of these community school programs, and it does so vividly.

A Better Chance in Lower Merion, founded in 1973, has graduated over 90 students, almost all of whom have enrolled in and graduated from college. Written by a sociologist who was an active board member of the program for twenty years, the book is based on her observations and those of a former staff member and on extensive interviews with the eight young men. The stories are enhanced by the boys' poems and other writings.