Hold Fast to Dreams: A College Guidance Counselor, His Students, and the Vision of a Life Beyond Poverty

An “invaluable” memoir by a counselor who left the elite private-school world to help poor and working-class kids get into college (Washington Monthly).

Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Prize

Joshua Steckel left an elite Manhattan school to serve as the first-ever college guidance counselor at a Brooklyn public high school—and has helped hundreds of disadvantaged kids gain acceptance. But getting in is only one part of the drama. This riveting work of narrative nonfiction follows the live...