Here are 100 books that Visiting Day fans have personally recommended if you like
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Over 5 million children in the United States have had at least one parent in a correctional facility at one time or another. These children, and their parents, are our neighbors, our family, our friends. We might see them at a soccer match, or sit beside them at public libraries, or gather together with them regularly in prayer. They need to see themselves portrayed in a meaningful manner in the books they read. This shortlist includes two picture books, a middle-grade novel, and two young adult titles. I'm passionate about books on this topic because equity and inclusiveness and vital to me; and because I think excellent books such as these may enable us to start nuanced discussions and enhance our compassion.
If you’ve ever wondered about the difference between writing that is spare and writing that is sparse, read this phenomenal verse novel for young adults. Punching The Air is a stunning example of eloquence and a testament to the power of poetry, created by award author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist, motivational speaker and member of the exonerated five, Yusef Salaam. As lyrical as it is profound, this is the story of one young man’s incredible strength and resilience; a young man able to preserve his humanity and compassion as he battles against oppression and systemic racism.
From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.
The story that I thought
was my life
didn't start on the day
I was born
Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. "Boys just…
As a graphic novel creator and art teacher with years of experience, I understand the importance of introducing serious topics for discussion in an accessible way. My art students of all ages are curious about different subjects, wondering what life is like for others and if their own feelings are normal. Graphic novels are a perfect tool for fostering these discussions. Having been interested in comics as a medium for a long time, I'm thrilled to share this with young audiences and encourage exploration of diverse perspectives.
Families come in all shapes and sizes, and it's crucial for children to see a variety of experiences in literature.
Hey, Kiddo portrays the author's upbringing with his grandparents due to his absent father and mother's substance abuse. The book offers child-friendly talking points on the challenging topic of addiction. It captures the complexities of growing up and family life amidst life-changing events.
An important graphic novel memoir that was a US National Book Award Finalist. In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka's teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy.
But Jarrett's family is much more complicated than that.
His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett's life.
His father is a mystery - Jarrett doesn't know where to find him, or even what his name is.
Jarrett lives with his grandparents - two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through with raising children until Jarrett…
There are 2.2 million people behind bars in the United States—more than any other country in the world —in greatly disproportionate demographic numbers. There are mandatory drug sentencing laws that put fathers and mothers, sometimes both, away for many years regardless of their actual direct involvement in a crime. I wrote this book because no matter how one feels about these laws, or these crimes, if 2.2 million adults are incarcerated, there are at least as many children without mothers or fathers. Having lost my mother to suicide there are many connections, stigma, shame, and the hardship of reconciling a mother’s love in spite of the events that took her away from me.
On the other end of the spectrum is a light and funny, extremely well-written, and poignant middle grade novel about a boy growing up with his mother inside prison walls. (Full disclosure, I cried at the end of the book.)
While it’s not realism, it brings attention to its readers, that the law is not perfect, and often the wrong people are in prison. The happy ending helps make this realization palpable for young readers, who nonetheless will get the message about criminal justice and being quick to judge.
Junior Library Guild Selection * Kids' Indie Next List Pick From Leslie Connor, award-winning author of Waiting for Normal and Crunch, comes a soaring and heartfelt story about love, forgiveness, and how innocence makes us all rise up. All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook is a powerful story, perfect for fans of Wonder and When You Reach Me. Eleven-year-old Perry was born and raised by his mom at the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility in tiny Surprise, Nebraska. His mom is a resident on Cell Block C, and so far Warden Daugherty has made it possible for them…
Over 5 million children in the United States have had at least one parent in a correctional facility at one time or another. These children, and their parents, are our neighbors, our family, our friends. We might see them at a soccer match, or sit beside them at public libraries, or gather together with them regularly in prayer. They need to see themselves portrayed in a meaningful manner in the books they read. This shortlist includes two picture books, a middle-grade novel, and two young adult titles. I'm passionate about books on this topic because equity and inclusiveness and vital to me; and because I think excellent books such as these may enable us to start nuanced discussions and enhance our compassion.
This book, like the author’s award-winning Last Stop On Market Street, features a child taking a trip on public transportation to an unknown destination. Milo, the protagonist, imagines where his fellow passengers are headed in language that is believably childlike but also fresh and vivid. He is heading to prison, to meet his mother – and the surprise ending to this book begs the question of who has a right to judge anyone else, and sends a gentle but powerful message against making conclusions about people based on appearance.
Milo is on a long subway ride with his older sister. To pass the time, he studies the faces around him and makes pictures of their lives. There's the whiskered man with the crossword puzzle; Milo imagines him playing solitaire in a cluttered apartment full of pets. There's the wedding-dressed woman with a little dog peeking out of her handbag; Milo imagines her in a grand cathedral ceremony. And then there's the boy in the suit with the bright white sneakers; Milo imagines him arriving home to a castle with a drawbridge and a butler. But when the boy in…
As a writer and journalist in Iran, I knew many activists and journalists who spent time in solitary confinement. I noticed that this part of their prison experience was the hardest one for them to put to words, even those keen on sharing their experiences have a much easier time talking about the interrogation room but remain strangely reticent about the solitary cell. When I set out to write a novel about a bus driver who ends up in jail, I decided to dedicate several chapters of the book to his time in solitary confinement. That research sent me down the rabbit hole of interviewing former prisoners and reading widely about the solitary experience.
After the news came out that Norman Mailer was writing a book about the life of Gary Gilmore, which came to be his magnum opus, The Executioner’s Song, he received a letter from a convict named Jack Henry Abbott. An avid reader of philosophy and literature who was also serving a life sentence, Abbott wrote to warn the renowned author against misapprehending American prisons and to teach him how to write about the violence of incarceration. The two men exchanged long, detailed letters. Eventually, Mailer collected Abbott’s letters in this book. In his letters, in a tone both detached and lyrical, Abbott writes unforgettably about what spending long years in prison does to one’s soul and body. In my view, the letter on solitary confinement is the finest and most harrowing chapter of this book.
A collection of letters by a federal prisoner provides a candid look at life in prison, revealing his background, politics, and views on parole, rehabilitation, and capital punishment
Incarceration is a gigantic problem in the US, especially because of its connection to racial injustice. I have no firsthand experience with prison or the system, and yet it looms large in my imagination and my deepest fears. That should not be the case merely because I’m a Black gay American, but here we are. I feel that with the help of my mother and others, I have managed to sidestep a lot of the potential pitfalls of people’s misguided perception of my identity, but I have an active, paranoid imagination and profound survivor guilt, so I gravitate toward stories about people at who are odds with our society in ways that reflect that precarious status which allows me to explore a wide range of human experiences.
This book is one of the most compassionate, no-nonsense,
and highly informative books about the system out there.
It’s intended as a
helpful guide for people who are about to leave prison, but if you’re on the
outside and curious about the largely hidden, unconsidered, and technical
aspects of incarceration in the USA, this book, like its earlier companion, Behind
Bars, will blow your mind and maybe save your life, especially if you’re
involved in the system.
The Civil War has been a passion of mine since I was seven years old. This was inflamed by a professor I met at SUNY Cortland—Ellis Johnson, who first told me of the POW camp at Elmira, New York. Even though I grew up just thirty miles from Elmira I was astounded at this revelation. Later I learned that I had a third great-grandfather—William B. Reese—who served in the Veterans Reserve Corps after being wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and was assigned to the garrison in Elmira, where he may have stood guard over the very prison his great grandson would write about.
This intriguing collection of essays explores the dark reaches of Civil War prison scholarship from a variety of viewpoints and professions—including historians, anthropologists and public historians. The eclectic mix of topics includes environment, race, material culture, memory, and more. One of the more interesting aspects explored here is the phenomenon of prison camps which became tourist attractions—such as Johnson’s Island off Sandusky, Ohio—where steamboats would ply the waters around the island so guests might be able to spot an actual Rebel officer.
The "deadlines" were boundaries prisoners had to stay within or risk being shot. Just as a prisoner would take the daring challenge in "crossing the deadline" to attempt escape, Crossing the Deadlines crosses those boundaries of old scholarship by taking on bold initiatives with new methodologies, filling a void in the current scholarship of Civil War prison historiography, which usually does not go beyond discussing policy, prison history and environmental and social themes. Due to its eclectic mix of contributors-from academic and public historians to anthropologists currently excavating at specific stockade sites-the collection appeals to a variety of scholarly and…
God gave me a life-long calling to help anyone affected by sexual violence. Words often fail when I try to describe the pain that results from sexual abuse and what it truly means to me to make a positive difference in the lives of survivors. My heart and soul break for those who are suffering from evil crimes, and yet I continuously see people disclosing, expressing, growing, and healing. From my many years working as a counselor and advocate, I've learned that very often people just need someone to be with them and listen. I'm committed to supporting others in this area for as long as I can be helpful.
Fish is a powerful, detailed memoir about TJ Parsell’s incarceration in an adult prison as a teenager.
At the age of 17, Parsell chose to hold up a store with a toy gun, and that mistake led to horrific exploitation and sexual abuse by other inmates. This book deals with issues of gang rape, prison hierarchy, injustice, surviving behind bars, and Parsell’s growth into and embracing his own sexuality.
I felt sad and disgusted while reading it, however I learned so much and I believe this book is vitally important when thinking about prison systems, sentencing, and prison rape. Parsell was eventually released from prison, and he has dedicated so much of his life to prison reform, prevention of sexual violence, and helping survivors.
When seventeen-year-old T. J. Parsell held up the local Photo Mat with a toy gun, he was sentenced to four and a half to fifteen years in prison. The first night of his term, four older inmates drugged Parsell and took turns raping him. When they were through, they flipped a coin to decide who would "own" him. Forced to remain silent about his rape by a convict code among inmates (one in which informers are murdered), Parsell's experience that first night haunted him throughout the rest of his sentence. In an effort to silence the guilt and pain of…
The idea for my first novel came from a 1946 study of Alabama parolees, linking individual characteristics to the likelihood of recidivism. The outcomes were surprising in many instances: “promising factors” such as education, profession, and intelligence didn’t correlate with good behavior. This got me thinking about the lasting effectsof imprisonment. Sentences don’t necessarily end when an inmate walks out the prison door. I see this again and again in the previously incarcerated students I teach at Helena College—they’ve been released from an institution, but mental and physical imprisonment lingers, and sometimes grows. The books on this list don’t shy away from that hard reality.
This is the only piece of nonfiction on this list, but the plot is as tortuous and epic as any good novel. This book helped me understand the vast inequities inherent in our prison industry—from mandatory sentencing to privatization to the abhorrent practice of convict leasing, aptly known as “slavery by another name.” If there’s any hope of rehabilitating the country’s prison system, we must learn its history—as ugly and unjust as it might be. This is a hard read, but an immensely important one.
In the prison business, all roads lead to Texas. A pioneer in criminal justice severity―from assembly-line executions to supermax isolation, from mandatory sentencing to prison privatization―Texas is the most locked-down state in the most incarcerated country in the world. Texas Tough, a sweeping history of American imprisonment from the days of slavery to the present, explains how a plantation-based penal system once dismissed as barbaric became a template for the nation.
Drawing on the individual stories as well as authoritative research, Texas Tough reveals the true origins of America's prison juggernaut and points toward a more just and humane future.
I have been involved with teaching in prison for the last 22 years, and have taught everything from creative writing to meditation to college classes across carceral facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts. As the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College’s campus at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, I constantly work with faculty and students who are navigating the teaching and learning environment under some of the most adverse circumstances. These books have helped me feel less alone in this work.
McMay and Kimble’s edited volume brings together a wide range of case studies looking at some form of higher education behind bars. Meant to showcase many different forms of higher education in prison, this book underscores the diversity of what higher education in prison can look like. In each case study, strengths and challenges of a given approach are visible and provide an honest look at how to support learners in a range of circumstances.
Numerous studies indicate that completing a college degree reduces an individual's likelihood of recidivating. However, there is little research available to inform best practices for running college programs inside jails or prisons or supporting returning citizens who want to complete a college degree. Higher Education Accessibility Behind and Beyond Prison Walls examines program development and pedagogical techniques in the area of higher education for students who are currently incarcerated or completing a degree post-incarceration. Drawing on the experiences of program administrators and professors from across the country, it offers best practices for (1) developing, running, and teaching in college programs…
