Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau is my favorite! So informative and interesting! There is also a follow up on the publisher’s website on how those kids turned out as adults.
If you liked that you should check out “Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice” by Willie Parker. It’s a perspective we don’t really get to hear in the US. Very refreshing!
I read Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin when I was 13. Living in an all white community during the Civil Rights movement, a teacher recommended this book for an insight into movement.
Same here. I read it in the mid 60s. It was pretty popular and for the first time I understood what living black in the south was like. I’ve never forgotten it.
Lies and An Indigenous People’s are both excellent. I only just recently downloaded 1491 but am looking forward to it. I actually had my boys read Lies My Teacher Told Me as part of their required hs reading.
Not quite Justice but two additions to the list: Howard Zinns A Peoples History of the US and for fiction I think Pamela Sargent’s The Shore of Women is a wonderful fiction story about men vs women in our society.
He did a livestream for our university when we did this book for a freshman read. I thought his speech was more organized than the book and more of a call to action. I think you can find a few of his speeches on YouTube.
All books by Toni Morrison; To Kill A Mockingbird; The Diary of Anne Frank; Night by Elie Wiesel; A Lesson Before Dying by Earnest Gaines; Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton; The Hiding Place by Cory ten Boom; I could go on…
The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by S. Abramsky 2013… Ward, J. (2016). The Fire this Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race…Isenberg, N. (2016). White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.
A couple of classics: “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” by Robert Tressell (fiction) and “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist” by Alexander Berkman (nonfiction)
Both of these can be found online at Project Gutenberg and “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” has an excellently narrated recording by Tadhg Hynes at LibriVox.
I listened to an audiobook of “The Hate U Give” and was incredibly moved. Same with “Just Mercy” by the wonderful Bryan Stevenson, a prophet for our times.
John Grisham
addresses justice issues in a popular format.Walter Mosely’s Easy Rawlins series is also a favorite. Recent books Eviction & Killers of the Flower Moon were both astonishing and eye-opening.
Down and Out in London and Paris by George Orwell. In it, in a chapter describing the experience of being forced, along with many others and under threat of physical violence, into a London flophouse and having to pay a few pence for the privilege, Orwell, in one sentence, notes that profit is the root cause of poverty as the flophouse is more profitable than London’s fanciest hotel “…there is more money to be made taking pennies from the poor than pounds from the rich.”.
Laura The segment was inspiring both men talked about …
Mockingbird. My local PBS stationis repeating the program alot so hopefully you can catch it. Happy reading.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. “Fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can inflict a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous.” And Sherman Alexi’s memoir: You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. I laughed and cried at the same time and when I finished it I started at the beginning and read it again.
Here is a description of the author and the book: Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Most of the cases Stevenson investigated were of black men unjustly prosecuted and and sentenced – many to death. He tells the story of a corrupt legal system that fuels anger and fear.
There are so many wonderful and life altering books mentioned here. I will also add Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Dee Brown) , Stolen Continents by Richard Wright and For Those I Loved by Martin Grey. They are all non-fiction.
Another great book is North of Crazy by Neltje. It is her autobiography and before the “Me, Too” movement it empowered women to speak out about their own experiences of sexual abuse. Also, She is a remarkable woman.
Battle Cry of Freedom (both volumes) and Slavery by Another Name are 2 of my favs. I generally lean toward this genre and non-fiction, to help give me an understanding of the shape of the world around me/us. I would say that A Warmth of Other Suns may be one of my all-time favorite books, period. It’s so much more than any of these genres to me… that book was everything!
Edited to add: Dr King’s last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community was powerful and now seems to embody prophetic insights. I wish more folks would read it. I didn’t have anyone you discuss it with when I finished it.
Between The World and Me, Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul by Clara Bingham, My Life on the Road
by Gloria Steinem, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, Tim Wise books.
Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India was an amazing book. Super impactful. Changed how I think about poverty and interacting with poor people.
Every essay in “The Fire This Time” (curated by Jesmyn Ward) is stunning. A tremendous expansion on James Baldwin’s original work: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28505023-the-fire-this-time?from_search=true
Yes! Loved this one!
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is a good one
Just finished that one last night, it was excellent.
The only book that has ever made me cry. I was full-on sobbing. ?
Absolutely devastating. Made me cry for our country.
Just Mercy or Evicted
I taught part of Evicted in my 10th grade class. Blew my mind.
Both are excellent.
Having worked in housing for an organization serving those who experienced homelessness, Evicted was intriguing.
Evicted was excellent.
It took me way too long to read Evicted bc it was so stressful to read. I think it is a must read book though. It’s expensive to be poor. 🙁
Evicted was fantastic. I lived in Milwaukee for 10 years, so I could picture the neighborhoods he talked about the whole time I read it.
Also The Warmth of Other Suns. Sheds a light on sharecropping, segregation, and Jim Crow as people try to move to make better lives for themselves: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8171378-the-warmth-of-other-suns?from_search=true
Wonderful book. Also Devil in the Grove, about Thurgood Marshall’s early career.
P.S. enjoyed watching you on Jeopardy!?
Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau is my favorite! So informative and interesting! There is also a follow up on the publisher’s website on how those kids turned out as adults.
So You Want To Talk About Race is fantastic. I also recently read When They Call You a Terrorist and loved it.
Justice.. what is the right thing to do.. Michael sandel
Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights by Katha Pollitt
If you liked that you should check out “Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice” by Willie Parker. It’s a perspective we don’t really get to hear in the US. Very refreshing!
Killers of the Flower Moon
Evicted is an excellent read!!!
A classic: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Dead Man Walking
I love that one, too.
The same
Just Mercy– Bryan Stevenson
Evicted by Matthew Desmond was amazing. I also thought Stamped from the Beginning was brilliant.
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200883
MOTHERHOOD IN BONDAGE: FORWARDED BY MARGARET MARSH by Margaret Sanger
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1008701
Just finished the sun does shine and it was such a well written story
The hate u give
When They Call You a Terrorist
I read Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin when I was 13. Living in an all white community during the Civil Rights movement, a teacher recommended this book for an insight into movement.
Same here. I read it in the mid 60s. It was pretty popular and for the first time I understood what living black in the south was like. I’ve never forgotten it.
Reading this as a teenager changed my life forever
Five Smooth Stones by Ann Fairbairn
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/271685
Wonderful book!
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20588662
Evicted
The new jim crow.
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13374868
The Grapes of Wrath
I am Malala.
The Hate You Give
White Rage
Symptoms of Being Human
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
I am Malala
The Warmth of Other Suns
Farenheit 451
1491
Lies Your History Teacher Told You
An Indigenous People’s History of the United States
An Inconvenient Indian
This Book is Gay
The Drowning of Stephan Jones
Lies and An Indigenous People’s are both excellent. I only just recently downloaded 1491 but am looking forward to it. I actually had my boys read Lies My Teacher Told Me as part of their required hs reading.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
A Civil Action
The God Delusion
To Kill a Mockingbird
God is Not Great
Unstoppable
Half the Sky
The Other Wes Moore
Nonfiction- Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson. Fiction – The Hate U Give and Small Great Things
Small Great Things stays with me…so powerful! ❤️
Finished Small Great Things a few days ago. Very thought provoking , powerful book.
Just mercy
Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol
We Should all be Feminists
I agree with many of the above.
Not quite Justice but two additions to the list: Howard Zinns A Peoples History of the US and for fiction I think Pamela Sargent’s The Shore of Women is a wonderful fiction story about men vs women in our society.
To Kill A Mockingbird
All of Corban Addison’s books are fantastic. I also loved I Am Malala.
>I Am Malala
I forgot about that one.
The Jungle by Uptain Sinclair
Wore a term paper on The Jungle in Junior year history. The book changed my life view
Just Mercy
Between the world and me. Ta-nehesi Coates
Wonderful book!
Next on my nonfiction to-read list. Can’t wait to read it!
The New Jim Crow was paradigm shifting for me and challenged everything I had been taught growing up.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6792458-the-new-jim-crow?from_search=true
Only it is happening here – right now, today.
I recently bought this to read.
Christian Nation
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
What is the What by Dave Eggers
That was a good book
Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund is awesome.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20342617-just-mercy
He did a livestream for our university when we did this book for a freshman read. I thought his speech was more organized than the book and more of a call to action. I think you can find a few of his speeches on YouTube.
Roots, though fictional, had quite a bit of historical research. I got a lot out of it.
I would also say Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature is a book that transformed how I look at the world.
Edit: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is another great one, jumpstarting the worker’s rights movement.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Erenreich
Protect and Defend by Richard North Patterson
Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
Drift by Rachel Maddow
Girls Like Us by Rachel Lloyd
Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario
Whipping Girl by Julia Serano
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King
‘Missile Envy’ by Dr. Helen Caldicott
Just started Gilbert King: Beneath a Ruthless Sky. Read The Devil in the Grove and found it fascinating and sad.
A Lesson Before Dying
Slavery by Another Name
Pedagogy of Hope by Paulo Freire
Evicted by Matthew Desmond
To Kill a Mockingbird.
Native Son
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Story.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and on the fiction side pretty much anything by Steinbeck.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Twenty-Lessons-Twentieth-Century/dp/0804190119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526842329&sr=8-1&keywords=on%20tyranny
https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1526842869&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=hillbilly%20elegy&psc=1
Toss up: Native Son by Richard Wright or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
“The Jungle.”
The pecan Man
Evicted
lord of the flies & to kill a mockingbird
All books by Toni Morrison; To Kill A Mockingbird; The Diary of Anne Frank; Night by Elie Wiesel; A Lesson Before Dying by Earnest Gaines; Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton; The Hiding Place by Cory ten Boom; I could go on…
Barbara, you certainly have read some marvelous books!
The Help
It’s true
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult A white baby dies while under the care of a black nurse – based on a true story
Does The Help qualify?
Prison Writings by Leonard Peltier.
‘A Time to Kill” by John Grisham
Wow! Thank you for this list. This group is amazing.
Coming to Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
Night by Elie Wiesel is also fabulous.
Just Mercy
Vonnegut
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
The Hate U Give and To Kill a Mockingbird
The Glass Castle
“It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis
“A Civil Action” by Jonathan Harr
That was such a compelling and important story.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol
The Grapes of Wrath.
Love that book!
The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by S. Abramsky 2013… Ward, J. (2016). The Fire this Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race…Isenberg, N. (2016). White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Just Mercy, nonfiction
Just Mercy
The Fire This Time(Jesmyn Ward)
I’ve read two good ones this year, Hillbilly Elegy and Radium Girls.
The Girls Who Went Away.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover.
Whatever Happened to Willie Earle? by Will Willimon
A couple of classics: “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” by Robert Tressell (fiction) and “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist” by Alexander Berkman (nonfiction)
Both of these can be found online at Project Gutenberg and “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” has an excellently narrated recording by Tadhg Hynes at LibriVox.
How the Other Half Lives by Jacob A Riis
Fiction To Kill a Mockingbird; nonfiction White Trash: the 400 Year History of Class in America
The Hate You Give
Yes to Just Mercy. Also, I Can’t Breathe by Matt Taibbi and The Sun Does Shine by Ray Hinton and Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo. Fiction includes The Mercy Seat, This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey
and of course To Kill a Mockingbird
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-mercy-seat-by-elizabeth-h-winthrop.html
I listened to an audiobook of “The Hate U Give” and was incredibly moved. Same with “Just Mercy” by the wonderful Bryan Stevenson, a prophet for our times.
Still hungry in America by Robert Coles
Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol. Essentially anything by Kozol or Paul Farmer.
Warriors Don’t Cry
Imbeciles: Eugenics and theThe Sterilization of Carrie Buck, The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks
The Absolutely True Diary Of a Part Time Indian – F
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me – N
Both – Sherman Alexie
To kill a mockingbird. A time to kill. The Green Mile.
A People’s History of the U.S. – Howard Zinn
The Warmth of other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson
White Trash
Just picked this up. ☺
Great book…also you might try Slavery by Another Name…eye opener
Evicted by Matthew Desmond.
Evicted by Matthew Desmond.
The Other Wes Moore, Tortilla Curtain
John Grisham
addresses justice issues in a popular format.Walter Mosely’s Easy Rawlins series is also a favorite. Recent books Eviction & Killers of the Flower Moon were both astonishing and eye-opening.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
Anything by Ernest Gaines!!!!
The Hate U Give is pretty great. Older – To Kill a Mockingbird.
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer and Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (sp?)
just mercy
5 Smooth Stones. I’ll have to look up author to spell her name correctly
It’s by Ann Fairbairn – one of my favorites.
Regina , thanks. You are the only one to respond when I’ve mentioned the book.
I think it’s a forgotten classic but it very much deserves to be remembered.
I found this title on my library Hoopla site. Thanks Jeneane… I just added this book to my TBR pile. 🙂
Five Smooth Stones was the first book I read, as an adult, that made me start to ask questions.
Small great things
Fire in Beulah by Rilla Askew
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Cider House Rules by John Irving.
Between the World an Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Just Mercy by BRYAN Stevenson.
Devil in the White City. Also The Alienist
Down and Out in London and Paris by George Orwell. In it, in a chapter describing the experience of being forced, along with many others and under threat of physical violence, into a London flophouse and having to pay a few pence for the privilege, Orwell, in one sentence, notes that profit is the root cause of poverty as the flophouse is more profitable than London’s fanciest hotel “…there is more money to be made taking pennies from the poor than pounds from the rich.”.
Barking at the Choir by Greg Boyle!
Thank u missed that Father Boyle had a new book.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Must read!
Hope you saw Mr Stevenson & Mr. McMillan on PBS last night. I am looking forward to Just Mercy (my reserve just came in @ the library.)
Sandra I didn’t! I’m so glad he was on there!
Laura The segment was inspiring both men talked about …
Mockingbird. My local PBS stationis repeating the program alot so hopefully you can catch it. Happy reading.
The New Jim Crow
An excellent book
For a work of fiction, I’d say To Kill a Mockingbird. For non-fiction, I’d pick Martin Luther King Jr’s Why We Can’t Wait.
TKAM
I Am a Man by Joe Starita
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Nobody Knows My Name. James Baldwin
Native Son by Richard Wright really captures the terror of being an illiterate marginalized person.
Evicted.
Dead Man Walking and To Kill a Mockingbird
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. “Fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can inflict a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous.” And Sherman Alexi’s memoir: You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. I laughed and cried at the same time and when I finished it I started at the beginning and read it again.
Can you tell me more about Just Mercy
Here is a description of the author and the book: Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Most of the cases Stevenson investigated were of black men unjustly prosecuted and and sentenced – many to death. He tells the story of a corrupt legal system that fuels anger and fear.
Both books excellent.
The Round House by Louise Erdrich. She is a wonderful Native American author.
Yes she is
She’s one of my favorites, and that was a great book.
One of my favorite authors
There are so many wonderful and life altering books mentioned here. I will also add Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Dee Brown) , Stolen Continents by Richard Wright and For Those I Loved by Martin Grey. They are all non-fiction.
Make that Ronald Wright! Richard wrote Black Boy and Native Son, wonderful books.
Another great book is North of Crazy by Neltje. It is her autobiography and before the “Me, Too” movement it empowered women to speak out about their own experiences of sexual abuse. Also, She is a remarkable woman.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
That is one book I will never forget.
Amen to that one
Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer
Fiction: The Hate U Give, non-fiction: The New Jim Crow
Completely agree with both of these! Also Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls and Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
Just finished Hillbilly Elegy and am passing it on to my daughter and grandson.
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash. It’s about the attempt to unionize cotton mill workers for better wages.
Thank u!
This book is sitting on my bedside table, waiting on me!
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison was also very mind-opening
on is my favorite living writer but The Bluest Eye has always been too painful for me.
It is indeed a sad book which reflects a very sad reality..and therefore very impactful.
Megan
Evicited and Nickled and Dimed: Living on minimum wage. Both good books.
Does The Outsiders count?
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The Pelican Brief
Jodi Picout Great Small Things
So many great suggestions; I’ll add Trail of Tears by Gloria Jahoda to the growing list.
I just read ‘The Sun Does SHine” by Ray Hinton. It was realy good 🙂
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Yes. Incredible book.
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds.
This book had kids who never read asking for more time to read aloud as a group.
To Kill a Mockingbird
“Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
“To Kill a Mockingbird”
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Walk in the Sun by Corbin Addison, it’s a novel that sheds light on human trafficking
Animal Farm
Recently, Hillbilly Elegy.
I thought I would but I didn’t care for this one that much.
Denise I agree. The book was poorly researched and poorly referenced.
Battle Cry of Freedom (both volumes) and Slavery by Another Name are 2 of my favs. I generally lean toward this genre and non-fiction, to help give me an understanding of the shape of the world around me/us. I would say that A Warmth of Other Suns may be one of my all-time favorite books, period. It’s so much more than any of these genres to me… that book was everything!
Edited to add: Dr King’s last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community was powerful and now seems to embody prophetic insights. I wish more folks would read it. I didn’t have anyone you discuss it with when I finished it.
Excellent books!
Beloved
Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
I’m currently reading So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. So far, it’s excellent.
Trinity by Leon Uris
Through the Eyes of the Judged: Autobiographical Sketches by Incarcerated Young Men (edited by Stephanie Guilloud.) I used this in the classroom.
Animal Farm and To Kill A Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird
Half the Sky.
Excellent choice
Thanks to everyone who suggested Just Mercy.
Great book. Great man. Awesome historian. A national treasure.
ditto!
Added to my TBR!
Kathy Amazing man
What courage & commitment to take on our broken, racist system.
Waking Up White
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Erenricht
Between The World and Me, Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul by Clara Bingham, My Life on the Road
by Gloria Steinem, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, Tim Wise books.
There Are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, nonfiction. Fiction, “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens.
David Copperfield, To Kill a Mockingbird
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, non fiction. To Kill a Mockingbird, fiction.
Soul on Ice, Soledad Brother, Assata, Letter From A Birmingham Jail, The Isis Papers, The New Jim Crow.
Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India was an amazing book. Super impactful. Changed how I think about poverty and interacting with poor people.
Grapes of Wrath
A very important book that will make readers demand change.