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One Door at a Time: How Putting Students at the Center of Education Works
One Door at a Time is a powerful memoir-manifesto hybrid, co-written by Michael Gary Jr., David L. Heiber Sr., and Ivory A. Toldson, that tells the story of Concentric Educational Solutions, a student-first initiative grounded in Afrocentric values and real-world experience. Through a mix of lived narratives, reflective critique, and practical frameworks, the book charts the failures of the traditional education system, especially in underserved Black communities, and the grassroots, door-knocking, relationship-centered model that Concentric has pioneered. With stories from Baltimore to D.C. to Detroit, the authors show how putting students and their families at the core of the education process can transform not just academic performance, but lives.
The writing is earnest and clear, but it never hides from the hard stuff. I appreciated how the authors peeled back layers of bureaucracy and systemic dysfunction without sugarcoating anything. They didn’t shy away from naming how some systems are built not to serve but to survive themselves. What hit hardest were the sections about chronic absenteeism and the real lives behind those data points. They didn’t just throw around big ideas, they brought in stories of missed kids, misunderstood families, and teachers caught in the crossfire of outdated models. It felt deeply personal. You can tell these folks have walked the walk.
What stood out most to me was their relentless commitment to human connection. It sounds simple, just go to a student’s house and ask why they’re not in school, but the bravery and humility in that act is huge. This isn’t some theoretical overhaul. It’s a day-to-day grind rooted in trust and compassion. The Afrocentric lens added a depth I didn’t realize was missing in a lot of education reform writing. They’re not just advocating for more “diverse” classrooms. They’re rethinking what school means altogether, from the ground up, through culture, family, and identity. At times, it read like a love letter to forgotten students and a challenge to every adult who ever said, “We did our best.”
I would recommend One Door at a Time to anyone who works in education, or who has ever wondered why school isn’t working for so many kids. It’s especially important for policymakers, school leaders, and those in teacher prep programs. But I think it would move anyone who believes education should be about more than test scores. This book isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s a flashlight and a set of tools, and a reminder that sometimes, real change starts with just knocking on one door.
Pages: 260 | ISBN : 978-9004735989
Car Trouble
Car Trouble follows Jim Crack, a down-and-out young man whose misadventures across the freeways and backstreets of Southern California form a gritty, chaotic odyssey of personal implosion. What begins with his Volkswagen catching fire on the 5 Freeway spirals into a bleak but strangely comic day filled with existential spirals, weed smoke, porn, broken relationships, and failed attempts to find meaning in a world so dependent on cars, status, and surface-level happiness. Through vivid flashbacks and derailed digressions, Jim’s day of misfortune exposes a lifelong grappling with abandonment, identity, trauma, and a simmering, unshakeable rage toward the machinery of life, both mechanical and societal.
Reading this book was like crawling inside someone’s unfiltered stream of consciousness. Zorn’s writing is raw and intense, often hilarious, sometimes painful, and always fully immersed in Jim’s spiraling, disillusioned psyche. There were moments I laughed, like the pure absurdity of a landscaping crew rescuing Jim from a flaming car, only to feel a gut punch pages later as he sinks into total emotional paralysis on a crusty couch with nothing but a bong and old porn for comfort. Zorn captures the erratic rhythm of thought with a ferocity that reminded me of Bukowski meets Vonnegut, but with more exhaust fumes and burnt-out brake lights. The prose veers wildly. Sharp, punchy lines land like jabs to the ribs, then unravel into stoner-poetic rants or tragic internal monologues that drip with disillusionment.
But what really hit me hard was how real it all felt. Jim’s pain, his failures, the weird moments of tenderness or sudden clarity linger. This book doesn’t follow a clean arc. It doesn’t tie up neatly. That felt true to life. At times, I was frustrated by the sheer amount of dysfunction, the digressions, the lack of redemption. But maybe that’s the point. This isn’t a story about fixing things. It’s about someone living in the fallout of a life already shattered, trying, failing, and trying again in ways that are small, stupid, human. The way Zorn writes about cars as both literal death traps and symbols of modern isolation stuck with me after I closed the book.
I wouldn’t recommend Car Trouble to everyone. It’s harsh. It’s crude. It’s uncomfortable. But if you’ve ever been young, broke, high, angry, and unsure what you’re supposed to be doing with your life, this book will feel painfully familiar. It’s for readers who crave something raw and don’t mind wandering through the smog of existential burnout.
Pages: 273 | ASIN : B07CP4R132
LITERARY TITAN 