Vicarious Trauma & Self-Care

Learn how to care for yourself while caring for others

Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others – 

Laura van Dernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk

Nonfiction

This beloved bestseller—over 180,000 copies sold—has helped caregivers worldwide keep themselves emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and physically healthy in the face of the sometimes overwhelming traumas they confront every day.

Child Welfare, Foster Care, and Adoption

Understanding the systems, policies, and personal stories within child welfare and foster care

To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care – Cris Beam

Nonfiction

Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care, looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is “To the End of June,” an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of a few foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.

Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World – Dorothy Roberts

Nonfiction

Award-winning scholar Dorothy Roberts exposes the foundational racism of the child welfare system, revealing it as a “family policing system” that disproportionately targets Black families. Drawing on decades of research, Roberts argues that child protection practices lead to over-surveillance, foster care placement, and incarceration of Black children. She calls for abolishing the system to liberate Black communities and end this cycle of oppression.

Three Little Words – Ashley Rhodes-Courter

Memoir

Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years in fourteen foster homes, enduring instability, abuse, and neglect as her mother struggled. Shuffled between caseworkers and schools, Ashley faced painful challenges but ultimately found the courage to succeed and discover her own voice in this inspiring memoir.

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew – Sherrie Eldridge

Nonfiction

“Birthdays may be difficult for me.” “I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family.” “When I act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me.” “I am afraid you will abandon me.” The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children’s unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, and shame.

Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care – Claudia Rowe

Nonfiction

An immersive, devastating look at foster children’s lives, and a compelling exploration of the broken American foster care system, told through the stories of six former foster youth.

Someone Has Led This Child to Believe – Regina Louise

Memoir

In this powerful follow-up to Somebody’s Someone, Regina Louise continues her story of surviving the US foster-care system. After enduring years of abuse and instability, she forms a rare bond with counselor Jeanne Kerr, who unsuccessfully tries to adopt her. Despite further trauma, neglect, and being torn from Kerr, Louise remains determined to achieve her dreams. After aging out of the system, she struggles to navigate adulthood, haunted by her past but driven to finish school, build a career, and find her place in the world.

A Place Called Home – David Ambroz

Memoir

There are millions of homeless children in America today and in A Place Called Home, award-winning child welfare advocate David Ambroz writes about growing up homeless in New York for eleven years and his subsequent years in foster care, offering a window into what so many kids living in poverty experience every day.

Troubled – Rob Henderson

Memoir

In Troubled, Rob Henderson recounts his tumultuous journey from a childhood in foster care to his achievements in the military, Yale, and Cambridge. Born to a drug-addicted mother, Henderson bounced between ten foster homes before being adopted into a family marked by tragedy and violence. As he navigates life’s challenges, he reflects on how social class shapes his experiences, arguing that stability at home is more crucial than external success. He also introduces the concept of “luxury beliefs”—ideas that benefit the privileged while harming the less fortunate.

All You Can Ever Know – Nicole Chung

Memoir

In All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung reflects on her journey as a transracial adoptee, raised by a white family after being placed for adoption by her Korean parents. As she grows, Chung grapples with identity, prejudice, and the myth of her adoption story. With warmth and insight, she chronicles her search for her birth family, exploring the complexities of belonging, uncovering painful truths, and discovering unexpected connections along the way.

Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson

Fiction

Housekeeping explores the lives of two orphaned sisters in rural poverty, delving into themes of foster care, mental illness, and the fragile bonds of belonging.

Trauma and Healing

Understanding how trauma impacts children and how they can recover

The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity – Nadine Burke-Harris

Nonfiction

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris shares how one young patient inspired her groundbreaking research into how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—like abuse, neglect, or parental addiction—can lead to lifelong health issues. Blending science and compassion, she reveals how childhood trauma reshapes our biology and offers hope through innovative interventions that can heal generations.

What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing – Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey

Nonfiction

Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into behavioral patterns we struggle to understand.Through personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry shift the question from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” Winfrey shares stories from her own past, and together they explore how understanding trauma leads to healing, resilience, and a renewed sense of self-worth.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook – Bruce D. Perry & Maia Szalavitz

Nonfiction

In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry explores how trauma affects the developing brain and its remarkable ability to heal. Through compelling case stories of children facing extreme stress, Perry reveals how factors like environment, affection, and touch can aid recovery. Combining science with compassion, he offers insights and strategies to help traumatized children grow into healthy adults.

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts – Resmaa Menakem

Nonfiction

The body is where we fight, flee, or freeze—and where trauma from society’s ills endures. In My Grandmother’s Hands, therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem explores the impact of racism through body-centered psychology, showing how white supremacy lives in our bodies and affects all Americans. This groundbreaking work calls for healing generational trauma through a step-by-step, body-based process, offering both social insight and a path forward.

The Language of Flowers – Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Fiction

Victoria Jones uses the Victorian tradition of floral symbolism not to express love or joy, but to communicate the deep mistrust and loneliness shaped by her traumatic childhood in the foster-care system. Emancipated at eighteen and struggling to find her place in the world, Victoria discovers a talent for helping others heal through the flowers she selects for them. As she begins to reconnect with others, a chance encounter and a long-buried secret force her to confront her past. This poignant novel explores the lasting impact of early trauma and the possibility of healing through connection, meaning, and emotional risk.

Cultural Humility

Developing awareness of systemic oppression and cultivating culturally responsive advocacy

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and The Collision of Two Cultures – Anne Fadiman

Nonfiction

Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash: “What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance.” The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, “There are no villains in Fadiman’s tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty—and their nobility.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism – Robin D’Angelo

Nonfiction

In this in-depth exploration, anti-racist educator Robin DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what can be done to engage more constructively.

Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates

Nonfiction

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with our fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

The Fire This Time – Jesmyn Ward

Nonfiction, essays

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin’s 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

Under the Skin – Linda Villarosa

Nonfiction

Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today’s medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely.

There, There – Tommy Orange

Fiction

Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett

Fiction

In The Vanishing Half, twin sisters who grew up in a small, southern Black community lead drastically different lives after running away at sixteen. One returns to the South, living with her Black daughter, while the other passes for white, hiding her past from her white husband. Separated by miles and secrets, their fates remain intertwined, especially as their daughters’ paths cross. Spanning generations and locations, Brit Bennett’s novel explores race, identity, and the lasting influence of the past on personal choices.

The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson

Nonfiction

In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970.

Domestic Violence, Poverty, and Systemic Oppression

Understanding systemic factors that influence personal experiences

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us – Rachel Snyder

Nonfiction

Journalist Rachel Snyder frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths: That if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; that violence inside the home is separate from other forms of violence like mass shootings, gang violence, and sexual assault. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores not only the dark corners of private violence, but also its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.

Poverty, by America – Matthew Desmond

Nonfiction

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. 

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City – Andrea Elliott

Nonfiction

Invisible Child tells the powerful story of Dasani Coates, a young girl navigating homelessness, poverty, and racism in Brooklyn. Over eight years, Dasani’s journey unfolds against the backdrop of New York City’s deepening inequality. As she struggles with hunger, violence, addiction, and the child-protection system, Dasani is sent to a boarding school where she faces the challenge of balancing her past with her new life. This heart-wrenching, inspiring account reveals the resilience of one girl and the broader struggles of an unequal America.

Random Family – Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

Nonfiction

In Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc offers a detailed exploration of life in the urban underclass, focusing on Jessica and Coco’s relationships with drug dealers and their struggles with poverty, crime, and survival. Through their stories, LeBlanc examines the generational cycles of deprivation and violence, revealing how systemic inequality shapes personal choices and identities. The book provides a nuanced critique of life in marginalized communities, challenging stereotypical portrayals and highlighting the human cost of structural inequality.

Reading with Patrick – Michelle Kuo

Memoir

Recently graduated from Harvard University, Michelle Kuo arrived in the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, as a Teach for America volunteer, bursting with optimism and drive. But she soon encountered the jarring realities of life in one of the poorest counties in America, still impacted by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. In this stirring memoir, Kuo, the child of Taiwanese immigrants, shares the story of her complicated but rewarding mentorship of one student, Patrick Browning, and his remarkable literary and personal awakening.

Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver

Fiction

Set in the Appalachian mountains, Demon Copperhead follows a boy born to a teen mother in poverty, surviving foster care, child labor, addiction, and loss. Narrated in his raw voice, the story explores his struggle with invisibility in a society that ignores rural communities. Inspired by Dickens’ David Copperfield, Kingsolver’s novel adapts his themes of survival and transformation to a contemporary setting, giving voice to a new generation of marginalized youth in the American South.

The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing – Lara Love Hardin

Memoir

New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot-caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir. It chronicles a mother’s journey through addiction, incarceration, and recovery, exposing the foster system’s impact and the power of mental health healing.

Identity, Loss, and Resilience

Exploring how youth make sense of themselves, process loss, and develop resilience.

My Name is Why – Lemn Sissay

Memoir

At seventeen, Lemn Sissay learned the truth about his identity: his real name was Lemn, not Norman, and he was of Ethiopian descent. After growing up in foster care and being adopted, he discovered that his mother had been pleading for his return since birth. In this powerful memoir, Sissay reflects on a childhood defined by neglect and resilience, exploring themes of race, adoption, family, and the search for belonging. With his trademark lyricism and insight, he delves into the British care system, the meaning of home, and the transformative power of creativity.

Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu

Fiction

In Interior Chinatown, Willis Wu sees himself as nothing more than Generic Asian Man, a bit player in the roles he’s forced to inhabit. Working in a Chinatown restaurant where a cop show is constantly filmed, he dreams of becoming the prestigious “Kung Fu Guy.” But when he unexpectedly steps into the spotlight, Willis uncovers deeper truths about his identity, his family’s history, and the immigrant experience. A unique exploration of race, assimilation, and pop culture, this novel is both inventive and profoundly personal.

Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng

Fiction

In Little Fires Everywhere, two families in the carefully structured suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio, become entangled in a drama of race, privilege, and secrets. Elena Richardson, a rule-bound mother, is challenged by the arrival of Mia Warren, an artist with a mysterious past. As Mia and her daughter Pearl disrupt the Richardson household, a custody battle over a Chinese-American baby divides the community. Elena’s obsession with uncovering Mia’s secrets leads to a devastating unraveling of both families. The novel explores themes of race, class, and the consequences of trying to control one’s life.

Immigration 

True stories of young people adapting to life in a new country.

Solito – Javier Zamora

Memoir

Solito recounts Zamora’s harrowing 3,000-mile journey from El Salvador to the U.S. at just nine years old. Traveling alone to reunite with his parents, he faces perilous conditions, including dangerous boat trips, desert treks, and deception. Over two life-changing months, Javier finds unexpected kindness and forms deep connections with fellow migrants. This memoir is not only a personal account of his struggle but also a testament to the millions of others forced to leave their homes in search of a better life.

The Far Away Brothers – Lauren Markham

Nonfiction

In The Far Away Brothers, journalist Lauren Markham follows the Flores twins, seventeen-year-old unaccompanied minors, as they journey from Central America to the U.S. through perilous conditions. Upon arriving in Oakland, CA, they navigate school, work to pay off their coyote debt, and face immigration court, all while adjusting to life as American teenagers. Markham offers a poignant coming-of-age story, exploring the child migrant experience and shedding light on U.S. immigration policy.

LGBTQ+ Experiences

True stories centering the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals

You Can’t Get Rid Of Me: An adopted son’s search for family – Jesse Scott, Keri Ault

Memoir

Jesse and his biological brother Lee were adopted as children and led challenging lives—from a stint in a mental institution to sex work and addiction. After 50 years of looking for his birth parents, the technology of DNA and social media, plus a hearty tenacity, help solve the mystery of his birth, while creating new questions.

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives – Dashka Slater

Nonfiction

The riveting New York Times bestseller and Stonewall Book Award winner that will make you rethink all you know about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment. Artfully, compassionately, and expertly told, Dashka Slater’s The 57 Bus is a must-read nonfiction book that chronicles the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California.