Working class Americans are facing struggles in a country where policies, programs and opportunities can’t seem to connect with the people who need them most. Taking a close examination of this troubling situation are the talented award-winning investigative journalists Nickolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. What they’ve uncovered is found in Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope. It’s an important book for the times in which we live. Not all gloom and doom, the authors also shine a light on those making an important difference every day in America.

Kristof and WuDunn will be presenting their new book at Community Christian Church, 1635 Emerson Lane in Naperville. This event is sponsored by Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave. in downtown Naperville. The program is set for Thursday, January 30 at 7 pm and will include a book talk, booksigning and photo line. Tickets are being sold exclusively at .

About the Book:  The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of the acclaimed, best-selling Half the Sky now issue a plea– deeply personal and told through the lives of real Americans– to address the crisis in working-class America, while focusing on solutions to mend a half century of governmental failure.

With stark poignancy and political dispassion, Tightrope draws us deep into an “other America.” The authors tell this story, in part, through the lives of some of the children with whom Kristof grew up, in rural Yamhill, Oregon, an area that prospered for much of the twentieth century but has been devastated in the last few decades as blue-collar jobs disappeared. About one-quarter of the children on Kristof’s old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. And while these particular stories unfolded in one corner of the country, they are representative of many places the authors write about, ranging from the Dakotas and Oklahoma to New York and Virginia.

But here too are stories about resurgence, among them: Annette Dove, who has devoted her life to helping the teenagers of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as they navigate the chaotic reality of growing up poor; Daniel McDowell, of Baltimore, whose tale of opioid addiction and recovery suggests that there are viable ways to solve our nation’s drug epidemic. These accounts, illustrated with searing images by Lynsey Addario, the award-winning photographer, provide a picture of working-class families needlessly but profoundly damaged as a result of decades of policy mistakes. With their superb, nuanced reportage, Kristof and WuDunn have given us a book that is both riveting and impossible to ignore.

About the Authors:  Nicholas D. Kristof has co-authored several books with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, including A Path Appears and Half the Sky. Together they were awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for their coverage of China. They also received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 2009. Now an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, Kristof was previously bureau chief in Hong Kong. Beijing, and Tokyo. He won his second Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for his columns on Dafur.

Sheryl WuDunn, in addition to the award-winning work with her husband,  worked at the New York Times as a business editor and foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Beijing. WuDunn now works in banking.

Kristof and WuDunn’s upcoming visit is part of Anderson’s Bookshops’ calendar of special author events.

About Anderson’s Bookshop: Kristof and WuDunn’s upcoming visit is part of Anderson’s Bookshops’ calendar of special author events. Anderson’s Bookshops specialize in book sales, author events, book signings, and building a sense of community, learning and fun. The store has been helping Naperville readers for six generations. The Downers Grove location is at 5112 Main St.,   (630) 963-2665. A third bookshop location is in La Grange, at 26 S. La Grange Rd. (708) 582-6353. A toy shop, Anderson’s Toyshop, at 111 W. Jefferson Ave., in Naperville, opened in 2016. Key to Anderson’s success has been special author events, like the February 12 program with Jessica Simpson at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville.