Social Issues
Goals:
• Keep an open mind 
• Focus on the social issues
• Look on the library catalog to see how
many copies are in the district if you don’t
want to buy a copy. Put one on hold – see
me for help!
Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
● Social Issues : Alcoholism,
poverty, homelessness
● Summary : The author
recalls her life growing up
in a dysfunctional family
with an alcoholic father
and distant mother and
describes how she and her
siblings had to fend for
themselves until they
finally found the resources
and will to leave home
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
● Social issues: health,
psychology of food
● Summary: Traces the
history of the fast food
industry and discusses
how it arose in postwar
America
Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl
WuDunn
●Social Issues: sex trafficking,
gender, economics, developing
countries
●Summary: Tells the stories of
women in Africa and Asia who have
been victims of sex trafficking and
forced prostitution, gender-based
violence, and shows how girls'
education can change their lives
while providing a boost to the
economies of developing countries.
Ghettoside: a true story of murder in America
by Jill Leovy
• Social Issues: Police brutality, gangs,
gun control
• Summary: Using the story of homicide
victim Bryant Tennelle in the
Ghettoside, a word used to describe a
South Central Los Angeles
neighborhood, the author explores how
gangs have taken over neighborhoods
in the absence of a trusted legal
authority.
They called themselves the K.K.K. : the birth of an
American terrorist group
by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
●Social Issues: Terrorism,
racism
●Summary: Documents the
history and origin of the
Ku Klux Klan from its
beginning in Pulaski,
Tennessee, and provides
personal accounts,
congressional documents,
diaries, and more.
Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter
●Social Issues: Recycling,
economy, environment,
globalization
●Summary: Jounalist
Adam Minter travels
through the global
recycling industry, visiting
everything from back-alley
Chinese computer
recycling operations to
high-tech facilities.
Detroit City is the Place to Be by Mark Binelli
●Social Issues: Inner-cities,
economics, race, social class
systems, politics
●Summary: A look at the history
of Detroit, Michigan, once a
bustling industrial city and a
symbol of American enterprise,
but now a run-down urban
ruin, and points to the
emerging signs of the revival of
a city that has hit rock bottom
and now can only get better.
Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by
Robert Putnam
●Social Issues: Social classes,
economy, politics
●Summary: Offers an
examination of the American
Dream in crisis: how and why
opportunities for upward
mobility are diminishing,
jeopardizing the prospects of an
ever larger segment of
Americans
American Sniper by Chris Kyle
●Social Issues: Middle East,
military, Post-traumatic Stress
Disorder
●Summary: Chris Kyle, a Navy
SEAL, recounts his life and
military experiences, discusses his
record for the most career
sniperkills in United States
military history and the bounty
placed on his head by Iraqi
insurgents, provides an eyewitness account of war in Iraq,
shares the strains of war on his
marriage and family, and honors
his fellow soldiers.
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
●
Social Issue : child soldiers,
African civil war
● Summary : Ishmael Beah, now
25 years old, tells how at the
age of twelve, he fled attacking
rebels and wandered a land
rendered unrecognizable by
violence. By thirteen, he'd been
picked up by the government
army, and Beah, at heart a
gentle boy, found that he was
capable of truly terrible acts.
This is the first time a memoir
has been published about
someone who survived despite
these circumstances.
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
● Social Issues : World War 2,
survival, military
● Summary : A biography of
Olympic runner and World
War II bombardier, Louis
Zamperini, who had been
rambunctious in childhood
before succeeding in track
and eventually serving in the
military, which led to a trial
in which he was forced to
find a way to survive in the
open ocean after being shot
down.
Columbine by Dave Cullen
●
Social Issues : Teenage
Violence, school shootings,
psychological profiling
●
Summary : Provides an
account of the shootings at
Colorado's Columbine High
School on April 20, 1999,
focusing on the teenage
killers Eric Harris and Dylan
Klebold, drawing from
interviews, police files,
psychological studies, and
writings and tapes by the
boys to look at the signs they
left that disaster was
looming.
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson
●
Social Issues : Murder/serial
killings, history of Chicago
●
Summary : Tells the parallel
stories of Daniel Burnham,
the main architect of the
1893 Chicago World's Fair,
and serial killer Henry H.
Holmes, discussing the
challenges Burnham faced in
creating the hugely successful
White City, and looking at
how Holmes used the
opportunities afforded by the
fair to lure victims to their
deaths.
I Am Malala By: Malala Yousafzai
● Social Issues: Education,
Woman’s rights, Taliban
● Summary: Malala Yousafzai
describes her fight for
education for girls under
Taliban rule, the support she
received from her parents to
pursue an education, and how
the Taliban retaliated against
her by trying to kill her
Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports
World Upside Down by Dave Zirin
●Social Issues: Sports
politics, race, religion,
sexual identity
●Summary: Reveals how
our most important
debates about class, race,
religion, sex, and the raw
quest for political power
are played out both on
and off the field
Freakonomics By:
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
● Social Issue: Economics
● Summary: The authors
explore the economics of
real-world issues often
viewed as insignificant,
such as the extent to
which the Roe v. Wade
decision affected violent
crime, and examine
hidden incentives behind
all sorts of human
behavior.
My Forbidden Face by Latifa
● Social issue : Women in
Afghanistan, social conditions
● Summary:An astonishing firsthand account of a young womans
life lived under the tyranny of the
In a step of defiance, she set up a
school in her home for a small
number of young girls. Latifa knew
that she was risking her life for
something that could change little.
But the teaching gave her a reason
to get up in the morning, it helped
restore meaning in her life.
Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson
● Social issue: Navy seals,
Afghan war
● Summary :American
Navy SEAL and team
leader Marcus Luttrell
tells his story of the loss
of his teammates in July
2005 along the
mountainous
Afghanistan-Pakistan
border to al-Qaida
insurgents.