A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier  by Ishmael Beah

A Sierra Leonean boy loses his family to war and is lured into the army with promises of food and shelter at the age of thirteen. Drugged into action and ensnared in a perpetual cycle of violence and killing, Beah’s memoir shows the horrors and realities of the life of a child soldier. Eventually rescued and rehabilitated, Beah is now a 28 year-old New Yorker who travels the world educating others about the situation in Sierra Leone and the plight of child soldiers. His story is one of empowerment, hope and the ability to overcome obstacles. Beah asserts that we all have the ability to make a difference in the world, no matter what our background or life situation happens to be. This book is currently the topic of some investigation as to the accuracy of timeline events and some specifics have been challenged by media sources, but conclusive evidence for or against these details in Beah's memoir has yet to be drawn.

Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood  by Marjane Satrapi

Small Wonder: Essays  by Barbara Kingsolver

In this essay collection, author Barbara Kingsolver brings to us, out of history’s darker moments, an extended love song to the world we still have. Whether contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author’s belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth’s most remote corners as well as our own backyards, thus solutions may lie in both of these places. Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be and what we might yet make of ourselves.

The Color of Water  by James McBride

As a boy in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects, James McBride knew his mother was different but when he asked her about it, she simply said, “I’m light skinned.” Later, he wondered if he was different too and asked his mother if he was black or white. “You’re a human being,” she replied. “Educate yourself or you’ll be a nobody.” When he asked what color God was, she told him, “God is the color of water.”

As an adult, McBride finally persuaded his mother to tell her story—the story of a rabbi’s daughter born in Poland and raised in the US South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a Baptist Church and put her 12 children through college. The Color of Water is James McBride’s tribute to his remarkable, eccentric, determined mother—and an eloquent explanation of what family really means.

War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning  by Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges uses his many years of experience as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and his formal education in divinity school to write this collection of essays about the various ways people and institutions use war to find meaning. Most of his examples focus on the Balkan Wars, but he also discusses war in Latin America and the Middle East. Hedges examines what war does to soldiers, civilians, journalists and others. He is not a pacifist, but is intent on providing a witness to the realities of war as a contrast to the myths that gloss over the horrors that are intrinsic to war. His style is quite readable and extremely thought-provoking, with the ability to appeal to a wide variety of readers.