Book Chat 2024 | Goddard Riverside

Celebrating the Power of the Written Word to Create Change

Flyer for Book Chat at Fordham University for the Adult prize winner Richard Kahlenberg.

The image shows a group of children and adults sitting together in a community room. The children, some with face paint, are seated in folding chairs, with a few holding books. One adult is sitting on the floor in the front, smiling at the camera. — Families and children at the Book Chat with author Jeff Gottesfeld.

A man and woman sitting down in front of a projector screen, holding mics having s discussion in front of a crowd. — Author Richard Kahlenberg and moderator Gail Collins discussing his book.

On June 26, 2024, Goddard Riverside invited the community to join us for an in-person discussion about Food for Hope: How John van Hengel Invented Food Banks for the Hungry with the author Jeff Gottesfeld, winner of our 2023 Goddard Riverside CBC Youth Book Prize for Social Justice. The event took place at our Children’s Book Giveaway at our Isaacs Center.

On October 15th, Goddard Riverside partnered with Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service and invited the community to join us for an in-person discussion about Excluded: How Snob Zoning, Nimbyism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See with the author Richard Kahlenberg, winner of our 2023 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice⁠. This event took place at Fordham University’s Lowenstein Center. The discussion was moderated by Gail Collins, an Opinion columnist for The New York Times.

The Book Prizes celebrates the power of the written word to create change in the name of justice for all people⁠—a value shared by the publishing community and Goddard Riverside. Learn more.

About the Books

Food for Hope: How John van Hengel Invented Food Banks for the Hungry by Jeff Gottesfeld

Winner of the 2023 Goddard Riverside CBC Youth Book Prize for Social Justice

Hunger continues to be an international problem. This book shares the true story of how one ordinary person did something extraordinary and shows how everyone can do something to make a difference.

Readers will feel encouraged to find their own way to make a difference. Real life experience plus social justice interests combine into a powerful solution, filling empty bellies with nourishing food, all without costing a lot of money. Recycling meets hunger in John van Hengel’s ingenious, yet obvious solution to both food waste and widespread hunger.

Purchase a copy of Food for Hope: How John van Hengel Invented Food Banks

Excluded: How Snob Zoning, Nimbyism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See by Richard Kahlenberg

Winner of the 2023 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice⁠

An indictment of America’s housing policy that reveals the social engineering underlying our segregation by economic class, the social and political fallout that result, and what we can do about it.

The last, acceptable form of prejudice in America is based on class and executed through state-sponsored economic discrimination, which is hard to see because it is much more subtle than raw racism. Despite this there is hope. Kahlenberg tells the inspiring stories of the growing number of local and national movements working to tear down the walls that inflict so much damage on the lives of millions of Americans.

Purchase a copy of Excluded: How Snob Zoning, Nimbyism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See.