{"product_id":"9781250113450","title":"It Takes a School: The Extraordinary Success Story That Is Changing a Nation","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA story of David and Goliath proportions, how an American hedge fund manager created a unique school in Somaliland whose students, against all odds, have come to achieve success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJonathan Starr, once a cutthroat hedge fund manager, is not your traditional do-gooder, and in 2009, when he decided to found Abaarso, a secondary school in Somaliland, the choice seemed crazy to even his closest friends. “Why,” they wondered, “would he turn down a life of relative luxury to relocate to an armed compound in a breakaway region of the world’s #1 failed state?” To achieve his mission, Starr would have to overcome profound cultural differences, broken promises, and threats to his safety and that of his staff. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003ci\u003eIt Takes a School\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of how an abstract vision became a transformative reality, as Starr set out to build a school in a place forgotten by the world. It is the story of a skeptical and clan-based society learning to give way to trust. And it’s the story of the students themselves, including a boy from a family of nomads who took off on his own in search of an education and a girl who waged a hunger strike in order to convince her strict parents to send her to Abaarso.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Abaarso has placed forty graduates and counting in American universities, from Harvard to MIT, and sends Somaliland a clear message: its children can compete with anyone in the world. Now the initial question Starr was asked demands another: “If such a success can happen in an unrecognized breakaway region of Somalia, can it not happen anywhere?”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Holt, Henry \u0026 Company, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47121910464752,"sku":"9781250113450","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781250113450_p0.jpg?v=1769892370","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781250113450","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}