Youth Development Summer Reading List 2019
with contributions from education researchers & other youth development enthusiasts
For the fifth year in a row, our staff have generated this multi-genre reading list to share books that have encouraged our own self-renewal as it pertains to a subject we all take to heart: youth development.
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
This genre-bending radical self-help book encourages readers to embrace — via feeling, mapping, assessing, and learning — the patterns that surround us as inhabitants of an ever-changing world. adrienne maree brown uses a blend of ancestral wisdom, ecology, and science fiction to envision how social movements can evolve and how the future can be more liberatory. She asks: How do we turn our collective full-bodied intelligence towards collaboration, if that is the way we will survive? Read more.
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Published 40 years ago this year, this complex time-travel narrative explores the mentoring relationship between Dana, a black woman from 1976 California, and Rufus, her white ancestor in antebellum Maryland. Whenever Rufus experiences trauma, Dana finds herself yanked backwards through time and into his world. Her task: to keep him alive until he can father her great-grandmother. Read more.
America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo
Set mainly in suburban strip malls and subdivisions, this novel captures the private lives of working class Filipinx immigrants of Santa Clara County. It follows multiple generations of the DeVera family, moving between Marcos-era Philippines and Milpitas in the 1990s. Of her own community-focused process, Castillo says: Writing about the Bay and writing about the granular detail of the things that make up the lives that I grew out of, of the cities that made me — for me, that was a little bit like worship. Read an excerpt.
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
To research this book, Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick interviewed over 100 refugees from Chongjin, North Korea. In novelistic detail, she follows six citizens over the course of fifteen years. She reports the facets of their lives under a repressive totalitarian regime, which makes for a gripping and informative reading experience. Read an excerpt.
Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side by Eve Ewing
Eve Ewing is familiar with Chicago Public Schools, not just as a scholar who studies them, but as a past student and educator. She knows well the role that these institutions have played in neighborhoods, particularly related to history and shared memories. This eye-opening text combines history, sociology, and personal narrative to explore the intersections of race, power, and education. Read an excerpt.
Community Schools: People and Places Transforming Education and Communities by Joanne Ferrara and Reuben Jacobson (editors)
Community schools are an innovative strategy for unifying diverse individuals — youth, school leaders, teachers, community partners, and more — in the task of improving outcomes for students, families, and communities. This book anthologizes the work of diverse experts in the field and illustrates the power of collaborative solutions. Read more.
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza
In 1994, Immaculee Ilibagiza lost her loved ones in a brutal killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. For 91 days, she huddled with seven others in silence in a cramped bathroom. In those endless and terrifying hours, she prayed and shed her fear of death. This remarkable young woman’s journey will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss. Read an excerpt.
Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
In this graphic memoir, Jarrett J. Krosoczka details his experiences navigating his mother’s struggles with heroin addiction, being adopted by his lively grandparents, and searching for the father he’d never met. Interspersed throughout the book are real artifacts — like drawings and letters — from his childhood and adolescence. Read an excerpt.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
A sprawling novel of epic scale, Pahcinko recounts the lives of four generations of one Korean family over the course of the 20th century. Reading this book offers many chances to meditate on identity, sense of belonging, and the familial legacies that endure for generations. Read an excerpt.
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden
This vivid, lyrical memoir manages to be funny despite some tough themes. Relationships are at the narrative’s center: the complex ties between absentee parents and their children, the bonds of fast teenage friendships, the ache of first love, and the loss of a hero-like father. Among the book’s settings are Boca Raton, Florida; New York City; and Madden’s mother’s homeland of Hawaii. Read more.
We Dare Say Love: Supporting Achievement in the Educational Life of Black Boys by Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Jarvis R. Givens, Christopher P. Chatmon
This book offers research evidence, real-life reflections, and concrete guidance for anyone interested in the following question: what does it mean to educate Black male students in a large urban district? Readers follow a cohort of Black male educators who collaborated to change policy and practice in Oakland Unified School District. How did they implement and develop their pedagogy of care? How did they create classroom environments in which Black male students could blossom and achieve? Read more.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
In this mesmerizing memoir, Michelle Obama emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning. Of this, she writes, becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done. She chronicles her inspirational journey in her own words: from her formative years on the South Side of Chicago to her efforts to create a more inclusive and inviting White House. Obama encourages readers to set their goals and dreams high, and put their personal strengths to good use. Read an excerpt.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
This complex book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding how trauma from the past can extend well into the future. Readers follow Aster Grey, a protagonist who is black, queer, and neuroatypical. She lives on the lower decks of the HSS Matilda, a star vessel structured much like the antebellum South. As the story progresses, Aster investigates the mysteries of her mother’s death and the cruel overseers who control the star vessel. Read an excerpt.
Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back by Jackie Speier
California congresswoman Jackie Speier shares her inspirational life story in this memoir. In one affecting scene, Speier finds herself wounded on the Jonestown tarmac for 24 hours. Someone moves her into tall grass which happens to be on an ant hill, and she says you can’t sweat the small stuff when you’re dying. She goes on to persist through devastating personal and professional challenges, and to become a resilient figure in American politics. Read an excerpt.
A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment by Spring Washam
Written by a founding teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center, this practical and heartfelt book is essential reading for anyone interested in mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion. While interpreting Buddha’s 2,500-year-old teachings, Washam offers stories from her own life, as well as those from her family, community, and the world. Read an excerpt.
Educated by Tara Westover
At 17, Tara Westover set foot in a classroom for the first time. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag.” This coming-of-age memoir mines into the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and the grief that comes with severing close ties. A question at the book’s core: what is an education, and what can it offer a person? Read an excerpt.
