"This is a book of narratives, of stories, of practicing social workers from a variety of fields and with a variety of experience. These stories are rich in detail, emotion, consideration, philosophy, conflict, hope, and determination that make up the dailiness of the lives of social workers. Professor LeCroy has done a masterful and respectful job of recounting these narratives, and arranging them in themes that emerge not just from the stories but from the very nature of social work itself. The use of story and narrative is a kind of evidence that we ignore or belittle at our peril. I learned more about the faces and phases of social work reading these narratives than in thousands of pages of surveys or empirical accounts of this life. The central message here is that social work is a calling, a call to service (as Robert Coles has written). The words of these social workers speak to the luminous and nearly spiritual essence of the calling. ‘I still go back to the core thing,’ says one social worker. I do something that matters to somebody else, that matters to me. Something that has value. That is a demonstration of caring." Or, more directly, another social worker says, ‘Social work is a calling. A call to something. There is restlessness inside of you and you have the opportunity to deal with [it]. That restlessness has to do with injustice in the world..."