In the tradition of The Other Wes Moore and Just Mercy, a searing memoir and clarion call to save our at-risk youth by a young black man who himself was a lost cause—until he landed in a rehabilitation program that saved his life and gave him purpose.

Born into abject poverty in Haiti, young Jim St. Germain moved to Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, into an overcrowded apartment with his family. He quickly adapted to street life and began stealing, dealing drugs, and growing increasingly indifferent to despair and violence. By the time he was arrested for dealing crack cocaine, he had been handcuffed more than a dozen times. At the age of fifteen the walls of the system were closing around him.

But instead of prison, St. Germain was placed in "Boys Town," a nonsecure detention facility designed for rehabilitation. Surrounded by mentors and positive male authority who enforced a system based on structure and privileges rather than intimidation and punishment, St. Germain slowly found his way, eventually getting his GED and graduating from college. Then he made the bravest decision of his life: to live, as an adult, in the projects where he had lost himself, and to work to reform the way the criminal justice system treats at-risk youth.

A Stone of Hope is more than an incredible coming-of-age story; told with a degree of candor that requires the deepest courage, it is also a rallying cry. No one is who they are going to be—or capable of being—at sixteen. St. Germain is living proof of this. He contends that we must work to build a world in which we do not give up on a swath of the next generation.

Passionate, eloquent, and timely, illustrated with photographs throughout, A Stone of Hope is an inspiring challenge for every American, and is certain to spark debate nationwide.

Jim St. Germain’s is a voice that must be heard. Born into abject poverty in Haiti, Jim moved at age ten to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, into an overcrowded apartment with his family. He quickly adapted to street life and began stealing, dealing drugs, and growing increasingly indifferent to the despair and violence that would eventually kill many of his friends. By the time he was arrested at age fifteen for dealing crack cocaine from his bicycle, he had already been handcuffed more than a dozen times. After his conviction, the walls of the system closed around him.

Jim’s was a rare case because the system worked for him. He was placed mercifully not in prison, but in Boys Town, a rehabilitation facility based on structure and privileges. With the aid of mentors, “family teachers,” and positive male authority figures, St. Germain turned his life around. It proved a tortured path, but he would soon get his GED and graduate from college. And then Jim made another brave decision: he chose to stay in the same neighborhood where he grew up—every day risking situations that could lure him back to his former life—and to work from within to reform the way the criminal justice system treats “at-risk” youth.

Passionate, eloquent, and timely, Jim St. Germain’s searing memoir is more than an incredible coming-of-age story but an inspirational challenge for every American.

“Which, on reflection, feels true. Life is not a training montage from a “Rocky” movie. It is trial and error, setback and achievement. So if you graphed St. Germain’s progress from what he was to what he is, the resulting line might resemble the stock exchange during a bull market — jagged but rising.”