I'm not sure how qualified I am to review this book. I don't have too much experience with young children, and while I have spent some time in the classroom, much of what I concentrated on during that time was how to convey mathematics in a way that would be interesting and stimulating to the students. In this book, Tough focuses on exactly the opposite, stressing the "soft factors" and character traits that go into building successful academic careers and lives. The case studies and stories that Tough provides are well-related and interesting, but not as convincing as they could be, as there aren't too many of them. Tough also cites studies and statistical analyses about the importance of traits like perseverance, curiosity, and overcoming failure, but but as a general rule, the number of studies on these particular topics is also low. 
 This book works best if you approach it as a suggestion for future areas of research, not as a handbook or guide on how children actually succeed. Tough raises some very interesting points that suggest a great deal of hope for closing the achievement gap and helping those in disadvantaged situations get through school and life as a whole, but as he says in the book, this is a relatively new area of research for many social scientists and biologists. There simply isn't that large a body of work in these topics, so we're left with a murky sense of how much character really matters or what we can actually do to strengthen it in children. Tough provides suggestions, of course, but I'd love to see some other opinions and thoughts on them, as well as further studies on these techniques' effectiveness. 
 This was a worthwhile read, if only so that I could be aware of these new theories on child development and education, but I came out of it wanting a lot more, including another look at its points in the future. Tough is a good writer, presenting the studies and statistics in an accessible manner, but ultimately this book didn't have enough meat to it to live up to its ambitious title.