SUMMER READING LIST FOR SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS

Originally posted to BPD Listserve 4-29-04

Posted by: Sau-Fong Siu ssiu@wheelock.edu

NARRATIVES OF HELPING PROESSIONALS

• Cwayna, K. (1993). Knowing where the fountains are: Stories and stark realities of homeless youth. Deaconess Press. (Cwayna shares his unique perspective as a doctor who has dedicated his life to the medical treatment of homeless youth).
• Farman-Farmaian, S. F. (1993). The daughter of Persia. New York: Anchor Books.
  (Social worker teaching during fall of Persia and beginning of Iran)
• Hammerschlag, C. (1988). The dancing healers: A doctor’s journey of healing with Native Americans. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco. (Hammerschlag worked as a doctor among Native Americans which made him realize the differences in healing).
• LeRoy, C. W. (2002). The call to social work: Life stories. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (The stories of 34 social workers’ passion, choice of social work as a career, perspectives on life.)
• Parent, M. (1996). Turning stones: My days and nights with children at risk: A caseworker’s story. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
• Richards, K. N. (1999). Tender mercies: Inside the world of a child abuse investigator. New York: Child Welfare League of America.
• Verghese, A. (1995). My own country: A doctor's story (A young Indian physician practicing in a remote town in Tennessee when HIV first emerged there in 1985.)

NARRATIVES OF POVERTYAND HOMELESSNESS

• Agee, J.(1960). Let us now praise famous men: Three tenant families. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. (Agee spent four weeks living with a poor white tenant family)
• Ayala, V. (1996). Falling through the cracks: AIDS and the urban poor. Bayside, NY: Social Change Press. (Ayala provides us with an insight of what it is like to be poor and have AIDS).
• Berck, J. (1992). No place to be: Voices of homeless children. New York: Houghton Mifflin. (Over 30 homeless children in New York City were interviewed asking why and how they became homeless).
• Byerly, V. (1986). Hard times cotton mill girls: Personal histories of womanhood and poverty in the South. Ithaca, NY: IIR Press, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. (Oral histories of women workers in N.C. cotton mill villages).
• Crow Dog, M. (1990). Lakota woman. New York: G. Weidenfeld. (Mary Crow Dog tells of her youth, when her heritage was discouraged by her mother).
• Dodson, L.. (1998.) Don’t call us out of name: The untold lives of women and girls in poor America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. (Dodson is speaking to girls on such subjects as poverty, romance, sex, race, class, pregnancy, domestic violence, and more).
• Edin, K. & Lein, L. (1997). Making ends meet: How single mothers survive welfare and low-wage work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. (A study of the myth “that if people would just get jobs they could pull themselves out of poverty”).
• Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America. New York: Henry Holt & Company. (Ehrenreich brings the poor out of hiding and reveals a place where civil liberties are ignored and hard work fails to be the ticket out of poverty).
• Giardina, D. (1987). Storming heaven. New York: Ivy Books. (A recreation of the turbulent events in the coal fields during the early decades of this century).
• Glasser, I. (1988). More than bread: Ethnography of a soup kitchen. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
• Good, P. (1968). The American serfs: A report on poverty in the rural south. New York: Ballantine Books.
• Hancock, L. (2002). Hands to work: The stories of three families racing the welfare clock. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. (Hancock describes the lives of three women as they grapple with this new welfare world).
• Harrington, M. (1964). The other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan Company. (It is a scathing critique and analysis of the war on poverty, where bold rhetoric and political grandstanding have often supplanted action).
• Harrington, M. (1984). The new American poverty. New York: Penguin Books. (Harrington debunks some of the myths about poverty and analyzes how changes in the American and world economy pose new challenges in the war on poverty).
• Kotlowitz, A. (1991). There are no children here: The story of two boys growing up in the other America. New York: Anchor Books. (The story of kids living in a ghetto that is tyrannized by drug gangs and where murders and shootings often occur).
• Kozol, J. (1995). Amazing grace: The lives of children and the conscience of a nation. New York: Crown Publishers. (Kozol shows a world where babies are born to drug-using mothers with AIDS, where kids are murdered, and many of the men are in prison).
• Kozol, J. (1991). Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York: Crown Publishers. (Kozol wrote an important report of the neglect that has fostered a ghetto school system in America while diminishing the poor children's aspirations).
• Kozol, J. (1988). Rachel and her children: Homeless families in America. New York: Fawcett Columbine. (Kozol spent months among the homeless whose depressing stories tell of infant deaths, malnutrition, hunger, loss of dignity and desperation).
• Kozol, J. (2000). Ordinary resurrections: Children in the years of hope. New York: Perennial. (These are schoolchildren where social struggles with poverty and imprisoned fathers rate just under AIDS and asthma as the greatest threats to young lives).
• Lewis, O. (1959). Five families: Mexican case studies in the culture of poverty. New York: Basic Books. (Lewis gives an examination into the lives of extreme poverty while giving details of the homes, lifestyles, and characteristics of the poor in Mexico). This work and the concept of “culture of poverty” have been criticized for ethnic stereotyping.
• Liebow, E. (1993). Tell them who I am: The lives of homeless women. New York: Free Press. (He observes women who live in shelters and how they interact with others, pass their days; and struggle to retain their dignity in the face of rejection).
• McCourt, F. (1996). Angela's ashes. New York: Touchstone. (growing up poor)
• Nasaw, D. (1985). Children of the city: At work and at play. New York: Oxford University Press. (Nasaw deals with the abuses of child labor and child exploitation that still pervade the U.S. and the globe).
• Nietzke, A. (1994). Natalie on the street. Corvallis, OR: Calyx Books. (Nietzke worked at a psychiatric shelter when she met a 74-year-old homeless woman, who violates "every conventional notion of 'femininity' and forces us to remember death)”.
• Polakow, V. (1993). Lives on the edge: Single mothers and their children in the other America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (An in-depth look at female-headed families in poverty and the American welfare system).
• Rank, M. (1994). Living on the edge: The realities of welfare in America. New York: Columbia University Press. (Rank provides a representation of the bleak and desperate conditions that the typical welfare recipient endures).
• Riis, J. A. (1971). How the other half lives: Studies among the tenements of New York. New York: Dover. (Riis tours the reader through the nightmare existence in the New York City slums of the 1800's).
• Rosier, K. B. (2000). Mothering inner city children. New Brunswick, NJ. Rutgers
• University Press. (Fights the stereotype of African American "welfare mothers"
• who have low-income and are raising children in the inner city).
• Rubin, L. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working class family. New York: Basic Books. (Rubin writes about the working-class family in the early 70s).
• Schein, V. (1995). Working from the margins: Voices of mothers in poverty. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Schein interviews welfare mothers to find out who the people behind the stereotype are, why they need help, and what they need).
• Sheehan, S. (1975). A welfare mother. New York: Mentor Book, New American Library.
• Smith, B. (?). A tree grows in Brooklyn (growing up poor)
• Terkel, S. (1986). Hard times: An oral history of the great depression. New York: Pantheon Books. (First published in 1970, this classic of oral history features the voices of men and women who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s).
• Toth, J. (1993). The mole people: Life in the tunnels beneath New York City. Chicago: Chicago Review. (Toth describes the underground community that lived in a maze carrying gas and sewer lines and abandoned subway tunnels and stations).
• Wagner, D. (1993). Checkerboard Square: Culture and resistance in a homeless community. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. (Wagner accurately portrays a homelessness community and the less known aspects of homeless).
• Zucchino, D. (1997). Myth of the welfare queen. New York: Scribner. (Zucchino spent a year sharing the lives of two "welfare mothers to gain an intimate look at their day-to-day existence)

OTHER NARRATIVES: ETHNICITY, CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM, GLBT, AGING, WAR, PRISON, AND DISABILITIES

• Baier, S. (1988). Bed number ten. New York: Rinehart & Winston. (a woman who spent 11 months in an Intensive Care Unit of a hospital)
• Beard, J. J., & Gillespie, P. (2002). Nothing to hide: Mental illness in the family . New Press.
• Benedek, E. (1995). Beyond the four corners of the world: A Navajo woman’s journey. New York: Knopf.
• Berstein, N. (2001). The lost children of Wilder. New York: Pantheon Books. (Shirley Wilder’s journey from the New York state foster care system)
• Bibb, W. R. (2003). Rose's story. Waverland Press. (the mental health and child welfare systems)
• Brown, D. (1971). Bury my heart at wounded knee:An Indian history of the American west. New York: Rinehart and Winston.
• Carter, F. (?) The education of Little Tree . (also available as a great family video) The story of a young Native American child during the depression of the 30's. Taken from his grandparents who are raising him, he is sent away to an Indian boarding school, for "assimilation." (in the young adults section at most major bookstores)
• Chandler, K. (1995). Passages of pride. New York: New York Times Books. (Interview with six teenagers as they confront the challenges of coming out).
• Cofer, J. O. (1990). Silent dancing: A partial remembrance of a Puerto Rican childhood. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press. (Cofer's life unfolds through tales set in Mama's room, in Puerto Rican pueblos, and in Paterson, New Jersey apartments).
• Desetta, Al. (Ed.), (1996). The heart knows something different: Teenage voices from the foster care system. New York: Persea Books. (Children tell, throughpoems and personal essays, about the foster care system and how in the end they are left to a world they know nothing about).
• Fadiman, A. (1997). The spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (Lia Lee was born to a family of immigrants, and developed symptoms of epilepsy which led to a cycle of misunderstanding, overmedication, and culture clash).
• Feagin, J. (1996). The agony of education: Black students at White colleges and universities. New York: Routledge. (Interviews of black students and their parents at an unnamed but typical "State University to reveal racial barriers and impediments).
• Feagin, J., & Hernan, V. (1995). White racism: The basics. New York: Routledge. (Two sociologists offer several case studies suggesting that these events could have turned out differently if not for certain individual and social perceptions and reactions).
• Frosh, M. , & Soto, G. (1994). Coming of age in America: A multicultural anthology.
• New York: The New Press. (20-odd short stories and novel excerpts of triumphs and tribulations we all experience during adolescence).
• Hart, E. T.. (1999). Barefoot heart: Stories of a migrant child. Tempe AZ: Bilingual Press. (Hart's memoir concerns her childhood as the daughter of Mexican immigrants who worked as migrant workers to feed their six children).
• Hull, J. (1990). Touching the rock: An experience of blindness. New York: Panthì. (a memoir of a newly blind person).
• Hudley, E. V. P. (2003). Raise up a child: Human development in an African American family.
• Jacobs, Leo. (2000). Deaf adult speaks out. Washington, D.C. Gallaudet University Press. (An account of what it is like to be deaf in a hearing world).
• Kingsolver, B. (1990). Animaldreams. New York: Harper Collins. (Codi Noline returns to the sleepy mining town of Grace, Arizona, to care for her father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease).
• Marr, M.E. (1999). Paper daughter: A memoir. New York, HarperCollins. (Growing up Chinese American and working class in Denver, Colorado.)
• Lee, G.. (1991). China boy. New York: Dutton. (The author is the youngest child but the only son of high-born Chinese parents who had fled China and settled in rough urban neighborhood. Writes about how he copes with bullying by other youths of color.)
• Levine, E. (1994). Freedom’s children: Young civil rights activists tell their own stories. New York: Avon. (This book preserves the stories of children and teenagers who contributed to the civil rights movement).
• Mathabene, M. (1984). Kaffir boy in America: An encounter with Apartheid. New York: Scribner's. (A sequel to Kaffir Boy, the story illustrates a black boy growing in America and vividly details the horrors of growing up black).
• McBride, J. (1997). The color of water: A Black man’s tribute to his White mother. New York: Riverhead Books. (The story of Ruth McBride Jordan, the men she married, and the 12 children she had while battling racism and poverty).
• McCall, N. (1994). Makes me wanna holler: A young black man in America. New York: Vintage Books. (McCall's participation in violent criminal acts, and imprisonment seem to be an expression of the rage of many young people in America's).
• Mean, R. (1995). Where White men fear to tread. New York: St. Martin’s Press. (An epic conveys furious activism, intertwined with Mean’s own life).
• Montejo, Victor. (1987). Testimony: Death of a Guatemalan village. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press. (It’s an eyewitness account by a Guatemalan primary school teacher detailing one instance of violent conflict between the Maya people and the army).
• Morales, A. L. , & Morales, R. (1986). Getting home alive. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books. (The Morales’s express their radical and feminist views in diary-like poetry and prose that echo the rhetoric of the '60s).
• Rubio, G. (1999). Icy Sparks. New York, NY: Penguin Group.( Rubio lets Icy Sparks tell her own story of growing up during the 1950s in a small town where her Tourette’s Syndrome make her an object of fright and scorn.).
• Samuel, W. (date?) German boy: A child in war. (A recently published autobiography of a 10 year old boy and his mother and sister at the end of World War II in Nazi Germany and their lives for the next five years as "war refugees", first in the east and then in the west. If nothing else it is a story of survival and the horror of war from the perspective of the most vulnerable. Women and children. Plenty of lessons for those working with refugee and immigrant populations.)
• St. Jean, Y., & Feagin, J. (1998). Double burden: Black women and everyday racism.
• Armouk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (It shows how powerfully slavery has continued to play out by interviewing women who share the bitter, important truths and personal triumphs).
• Shilts, R. (1988). And the band played on: Politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic. New York: St. Martin’s Press. (AIDS)
• Thomas, P. (1991). Down these mean streets. New York: Vintage Books. (growing up Puerto Rican in New York City. First published in 1967).
• Walker, L.N. (?) A loss for words - The story of deafness in a family. (out of print but was recently still available at Barnes ndNoble.com. -Another autobiography, written by the "hearing" child of deaf parents. A really excellent examination of he issues, prejudices and adaptations of the deaf in a predominantly hearing
• White, M. (1994). Stranger at the gate. New York: Simon & Schuster. (White's account of his attempts to deny or "cure" his homosexuality desires--through life as a husband and father, through prayer and self-denial, and through shock therapy). society.
• Wolff, T. (1990). This boy’s life: a memoir. New York: Perennial Library. (Teenaged Wolff moves with his divorced mother and when she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather).