Reading for Empathy
To help build empathy for our homeless neighbors, Jenny Ryan and the team at Saskatoon Public Library (Saskatchewan, Canada) built a book list on homelessness.
FICTION
- Searching for Sam – Sophie Bienvenu
- Scarborough – Catherine Hernandez
- Ragged Company – Richard Wagamese
- Little Family – Ishmael Beah
- The Tender Birds – Carole Giangrande
- What Strange Paradise – Omar El Akkad
- Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
- Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler
- All We Had – Annie Weatherwax
- At the Edge of the Haight – Katherine Seligman
- Brave Girl, Quiet Girl – Catherine Hyde
- The Motel Life – Willy Vlautin
- The Break – Katherena Vermette
- Lullabies for Little Criminals – Heather O’Neill
- The Onion Girl – Charles De Lint
- Forest Green – Kate Pullinger
- Anatomy of a Girl Gang – Ashley Little
- Stanley Park – Timothy Taylor
- The Dregs – Lonnie Nadler & Zac Thompson (Graphic Novel)
- Up and Down on the Downtown Eastside – Chris Walter
- Like a Child to Home – Bill Engleson
MEMOIR
- From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way – Jesse Thistle
- The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls
- Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid – Evelyn Lau
- How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir – Amber Dawn
- Breakfast at Sally’s: One Homeless Man’s Inspirational Journey – Richard LeMieux
- The Salt Path – Raynor Winn
- Nowhere to Call Home: Photographs and Stories of People Experiencing Homelessness – Leah Denbok
- The Unexpected Guest: How a Homeless Man from the Streets of L.A. Redefined Our Home – Michael Konik
- Walk to Beautiful: The Power of Love and a Homeless Kid Who Found the Way – Jimmy Wayne
- Homeless by Choice – Roy Juarez Jr.
- A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless – Danielle Steel
- Finding Murph: How Joe Murphy went from Winning a Championship to Living Homeless in the Bush – Rick Westhead
- 48: An Experiential Memoir on Homelessness – Sheldon Jacobs
- This is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home – Lauren Sandler
- Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League – Dan-El Padilla Peralta
- Catching Homelessness: A Nurse’s Story of Falling Through the Safety Net – Josephine Ensign
- Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century – Jessica Bruder
- Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City – Matthew Desmond
