F.A. Day Library: Social Justice

Sixth-grader Sugar and her mother lose their beloved house and experience the harsh world of homelessness.

A group of fourteen-year-old boys, who make a living picking garbage from the outskirts of a large city, finds something special and mysterious that brings terrifying consequences.

In order to make more money for his family, twelve-year-old Diego, who lives with his imprisoned mother in the San Sebastián Women's Prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia, leaves his job as an errand boy and begins working as part of an illegal cocaine operation.

Nineteen-year-old Gage decides he can no longer live with a bossy guardian, and runs off with his little sister Ari. The two struggle to find a place to live and to get Ari into the middle school for gifted students they promised their mother she'd get into.

When seventh-grader Ellie, who is having best-friend problems, and eighth-grader Jack, who is under tremendous pressure from his father, switch bodies and lives, they learn a great deal about themselves and the opposite sex.

In 1980, when twelve-year-old Madison, who loves to play baseball, decides to play in her town's baseball league, she never envisions the uproar it causes when she becomes the first girl to join.

Grayson, a transgender twelve-year-old, learns to accept her true identity and share it with the world.

When the students in health class at George Wilson Middle School are assigned girl/boy partners to discuss gender issues, no one could imagine that two students would actually switch bodies.

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education, and she nearly paid the ultimate price.

Ishmael Beah describes his experiences after he was driven from his home by war in Sierra Leone and turned into a child soldier at the age of 13.

Japanese American Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston shares the story of her family's experiences living at the Manzanar internment camp during World War II, and discusses the influences of those early years in forced detention on the rest of her life.

A thirteen-year-old Dutch-Jewish girl records her impressions of the two years she and seven others spent hiding from the Nazis before they were discovered and taken to concentration camps.

A graphic novel version of events from the life of Georgia congressman John Lewis, focusing on his youth in rural Alabama, his meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student Movement.

The diary of a thirteen-year-old girl living in Sarajevo, begun just before her eleventh birthday when there was still peace in her homeland.

It is 1969 in Spanish Harlem, and fourteen-year-old Evelyn Serrano is trying hard to break free from her conservative Puerto Rican surroundings, but when her activist grandmother comes to stay and the neighborhood protests start, things get a lot more complicated--and dangerous.

Thirteen-year-old Louise uncovers secrets about her family and her neighborhood during the violent protests over school desegregation in 1960 New Orleans.

After a bombing in the city, Jane's parents move to a suburb where she befriends three outcasts--all named Jane--and starts a group called People Loving Art in Neighborhoods, which tries to enrich their community with art but instead is viewed as a threat.

Interrogated for days by the Department of Homeland Security after a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, California, 17-year-old Marcus is released into what is now a police state, and decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.

Malcolm's dreams of becoming a lawyer have gotten him laughed out of school, so he's given up on his future. After being lured into a dangerous world of fancy suits, jazz, girls, and reefer, he tries to leave his troubled past behind.

When Marlee hears a rumor that her new friend, Liz, is an African American girl passing as white, the two young girls realize their friendship could bring danger to their families.

When a burning cross set by the Klan causes panic and fear in 1932 Bumblebee, North Carolina, fifth-grader Stella must face prejudice and find the strength to demand change in her segregated town.

In the summer of 1968, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters travel to California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know.

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African-American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

In 1968 Chicago, fourteen-year-old Sam Childs is caught in a conflict between his father's nonviolent approach to seeking civil rights for African-Americans and his older brother, who has joined the Black Panther Party.

In Mississippi in 1955, a sixteen-year-old finds himself at odds with his grandfather over issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of a fourteen-year-old African-American from Chicago.

Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and their parents leave Bangladesh for New York City, but the expiration of their visas and the events of September 11, 2001, bring frustration, sorrow, and terror for the whole family.

When fifteen-year-old Miguel's time finally comes to leave his poor Mexican village, cross the border illegally, and join his parents in California, his younger sister's determination to join him soon imperils them both.

After her tribal village is attacked by militants, Amira, a young Sudanese girl, must flee to safety at a refugee camp, where she finds hope and the chance to pursue an education in the form of a single red pencil and the friendship and encouragement of a wise elder.

Two Burmese boys, one a Karenni refugee and the other the son of an imprisoned Burmese doctor, meet in the jungle and in order to survive they must learn to trust each other.

Sixteen-year-old Valerie, whose boyfriend Nick committed a school shooting at the end of their junior year, struggles to cope with integrating herself back into high school life, unsure herself whether she was a hero or a villain.

When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend.

While traveling to each corner of the country to build a whirligig in memory of the girl whose death he caused, sixteen-year-old Brian finds forgiveness and atonement.

After his anger erupts into violence, fifteen year-old Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative that sends him to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

(North Bound) Trent, an ace interrogator from Vermont, works to procure a confession from an introverted twelve-year-old accused of murdering his seven-year-old friend in Monument, Massachusetts.

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson is shot to death, his community is thrown into an uproar because Tariq was black and the shooter, Jack Franklin, is white, and in the aftermath everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events agree.

Sent to counseling for hitting his girlfriend, Caitlin, and ordered to keep a journal, sixteen-year-old Nick recounts his relationship with Caitlin, examines his controlling behavior and anger, and describes living with his abusive father.

An HIV-positive high school student hospitalized after being attacked, the bigot accused of the crime, and the only witness, a classmate with Down Syndrome, reveal how the assault has changed their lives as they tell of its aftermath.

With a foreword by Common, this anthology incudes more than 50 poems by 20th century writers on issues related to social justice.

In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till traveled from Illinois to Mississippi to spend the summer with relatives, but he never came back.

In 1944, 50 black sailors refused to work in unsafe and unfair conditions after an explosion in Port Chicago killed 320 servicemen, an incident that influenced the civil rights movement.

Relates the life and experiences of the Japanese American man who defied the order of internment during World War II and took his case as far as the Supreme Court.