Ben Carson starts out life with everything against him: an African American child from a one-parent home with failing grades at school, snacking in front of the television, and in need of glasses. But his mother, who dropped out in the third grade, starts making decisions for him. When her boys need to learn the multiplication (times) tables, she has them swear to learn them while she is gone to check herself into a mental institution. When she sees a successful them obscured by TV, she turns off the boys' TV and commands them to read two books per week from the library and give her a book report. She also moves them to better schools.
