My friend and fellow BookCrosser, limericklady, gave me this book to read, with a request that I share it through BookCrossing when I finish. This book is about the creation of   Bahia Street, a charity that is trying to break down the cycles of poverty and violence in Brazil by providing high quality educational opportunities for economically-impoverished young women and girls. My friend is part of the organization and hopes to increase the awareness of their efforts. I've already skimmed through parts of the book, and I see that she is in here, so I now have an additional reason to read the book.

From the back cover:
Dance Lest We All Fall Down is a gripping first-person account of one woman's experiences living in a Brazilian shantytown. She, a white American anthropologist, joins forces with an African-Brazilian shantytown activist to change the violence and despair they see around them. Their pledge to the residents to create a top-quality educational center for girls becomes a turbulent journey that takes us from the shantytowns of Northeastern Brazil to urban Seattle to high-society London. With the author, we experience a world of drug dealers, street urchins, and capoeiristas, English socialites, power-hungry "do-gooders," and wise teachers. This is a true story of insight and inspiration, courage, passion, and intrigue.

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I had heard a little bit about the  Bahia Street organization through my friends, so I could somewhat guess where the book ended. But I was mostly unprepared for the journey. When Ms. Willson first visited the city of Salvador da Bahia in Brazil, she probably never imagined the impact the city and its people were going to have on her life. As an anthropologist, she lived among the city's poor, learning about their lives and culture and gradually coming to love them. She developed a strong need to give something back, to change the social norms that trapped these people in grinding poverty. Thus was born Bahia Street. But this wasn't just another charity of outsiders trying to impose their vision of a better life. Instead, Bahia Street uses ideas, goals and people from the poorest parts of the city to work for a better life for the girls it educates. This local involvement seems to be critical to the organization's remarkable success.

The depths of poverty in many places in the world is almost impossible for us to contemplate from the comfort of our secure lifestyles. This book takes the reader deep into the poorest areas of Salvador and shows us the daily struggle for survival faced by the people who live there. It is a powerful reminder of the gross inequities that exist between the haves and have-nots of the world, and shows that it is possible for us to make a difference, however small, if we are only willing to listen and trust those in need.

I was given this book specifically to share through BookCrossing, so I will be organizing a bookring with it soon, so that others can share this powerful story.

In order for this book to reach the widest possible audience, I'm going to send it off as a bookring! I've offered it first to anyone interested from the local BC in DC group, but then it will be off to travel the world. If you are interested in joining this bookring, send me a private message. This will be an International bookring, so please remember to indicate your shipping preferences. Every effort will be made to accommodate people's shipping requests.

Bookring (ring order subject to change!)

1. hopi100, USA/Virginia <--Book is here
   
2. bookcraver, USA/Maryland
   
3. innae, USA/Colorado
   
4. buffra, USA/Ohio
   
5. fanclub, USA/Georgia
   
6. nicolesinger, USA/North Carolina
   
7. kiptrix, USA/South Carolina
   
8. Gizmopuddy, Ireland
   
9. SqueakyChu, USA/Maryland
   
10. Mom-Oyster, USA/Maryland
    
11. Back to ResQgeek
    

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I have been WOEFULLY negligent in getting this Bookring launched. The book has been sitting here collecting dust instead of travelling and collecting readers. It is finally time to right this wrong. I'm meeting  hopi100 tomorrow morning and I'll pass this book to kick off the bookring. I apologize for the lengthy delay in sending this out and I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say about the book. [I'm hoping that the other members of the bookring will pass the book along in a more timely fashion than I managed. Please, don't follow my example! :o)]

ResQgeek handed this off to me this morning during a lovely visit to Starbucks. :) Thanks so much! I can't wait to get started!

This was a fantastic book! I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to learn more about an area of the world I really am quite unfamiliar with, and Wilson's writing really kept me interested throughout. Thanks, ResQgeek, for sharing this with the group! :)

I have bookcraver's address at hand and will be posting this on within the week -- whenever I can carve out the time in my workday to jaunt down to the post office!

Thanks again!