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Public Health Book Reads

Books covering a wide range of topics for public health discussion.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Borrow

Print and Audiobooks are available at many public libraries.

The Free Library of Philadelphia (FLP) membership is available for Temple University staff, faculty and students. Several copies of The Hate U Give are available in multiple versions. Get an FLP Library Card

eBook ---- Audiobook --- Print (includes large print version)

Purchase

  • Purchasing the book: Click Bookshop.org supports local bookstores close to your home, or purchase on Amazon
  • Buy the Audiobook from Amazon's Audible

Movie: Made into a movie in 2018

About the Book

Why is it banned/challenged?

This book was banned shortly after it's release and has continued to see if challenged since. The title joins many other challenged books that highlight race related issues.

Tupac

The influence Tupac's writings have on this book are very clear. Below are is a post about this and a link to the Blockson Collection at Temple University where some items belonging to Tupac Shakir are preserved.

Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University

First Book Summer 2021

 

Public Health Book Club. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks image shows a sunThe book focuses on the life and legacy of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman born in 1920 who lived in Baltimore, MD. During treatment for cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, a sample of Henrietta's cells were taken without her permission. Those cells gave rise to a multitude of advancements in medicine, including treatment for cancers and infectious diseases vaccines, gene therapy, and much more. This book will give you the opportunity to discuss ethics, the history of racism and discrimination, scientific advancement and privacy, and much more, all through the lens of one family's story. This book is perfect for those new to the field of public health, as well as those that will soon be wrapping up their public health education and are thinking about life beyond graduate school. 

Don't want to buy the book? Try a library! Suggestions and tips in the Find a Book tab.

Banned Books Week

Every Fall libraries and organizations put a focus on the challenges to books during BANNED BOOKS WEEK. Banned Books Week is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

 

As an advocate for storytelling and an outspoken critic of censorship, Reynolds is the perfect person to headline Banned Books Week 2021, which has the theme, “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.”

2022 Banned Books Week: September 18-24, 2022

Challenging Books in 2022

There have been growing challenges to books and there are themes...

Banned or Challenged Books

2021 and 2022 has seen many challenges to books at the state and local levels. A quick Google search will result in many stories about states and school communities requesting removal of books. Some lists contain hundreds of titles.

The American Library Association monitors and compiles lists.

"ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports from libraries, schools, and the media on attempts to ban books in communities across the country. We compile lists of challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools."

 

The Hate U Give made the ALA’s Top Ten List in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021.

Fall 2021 Pick: The Spirit Catches You...

 

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy.    Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. Anne Fadiman's compassionate account of this cultural impasse is literary journalism at its finest.  Lia Lee 1982-2012    Lia Lee died on August 31, 2012. She was thirty years old and had been in a vegetative state since the age of four. Until the day of her death, her family cared for her lovingly at home.

 

Don't want to buy the book? Try a library! Suggestions and tips In the Find a Book tab. 

Extras

Extras/pre-reading