I believe all children should have access to books, regardless of where they live or their family circumstances. This belief guides a personal initiative I care deeply about, with more details and ways to get involved coming soon.

In the meantime, here are some of my all-time favorite books and poems.

Books

• Sooner or Later, Everything Falls into the Sea, Sarah Pinsker 
• The Best We Could Do, Thi Bui
• The Little Girl, The Ocean, and The Moon, Ivy Kwong 
• This is Water, David Foster Wallace 
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong 
• Jeanne & Modigliani: Paris in the dark, Nadine Van der Straeten
• The Unwinding: and other dreamings, Jackie Morris 
• Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett 
• La Bâtarde, Violette Leduc
• Persuasion, Jane Austen 
• ፍቅር እስከ መቃብር, Haddis Alemayehu
• Je voudrais que quelqu’un m’attende quelque part, Anna Gavalda 
• The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir
• Black Like Me, John Griffin 
• Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Selected Early Stories, Joyce Carol Oates 
• Kindred, Octavia Butler 
• Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
• My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past, Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair
• No More Heroes: Grassroots Challenges to the Savior Mentality, Jordan Flaherty
• Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Femicide Machine, Sergio González Rodríguez
• Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin 
• Night, Ellie Wiesel 
• Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
• Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Daring Greatly, Brené Brown
• Mouthful of Birds, Samanta Schweblin
• Women Talking, Miriam Toews
• The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois
• The Apartment- A Century of Russian History, Alexandra Litvina
• Whereabouts, Jhumpa Lahiri
• Addis Ababa Noir, Maaza Mengiste
• Afterlives, Abdulrazak Gurnah
• Fangs, Sarah Andersen
• The Ethiopians, Richard Pankhurst 
• The Stranger in the Life Boat, Mitch Albom
• It’s Not What You Thought It Would Be, Lizzy Stewart 
• Zoom, Istvan Banyai 
• Beloved Dog, Maira Kalman
• The Most Secret Memory of Men, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
• Woman, Life, Freedom, Marjane Satrapi
• Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo, Sandra Cisneros 
• Mira and the Star that Fell to Earth, Liza Moore
• Paul at Home, Michel Rabagliati
• Joie, Ajiri Aki 
• Her: A Memoir, Christa Parravani
• The Lindworm, A Story Told by Martin Shaw
• The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton
• Valemon the Bear, featuring Martin Shaw 

Poems 

• Blessings, Andrew Hinton, Owen Ó Súilleabháin & David Whyte
• Advice to a Young Prophet, Thomas Merton
• For One Who Is Exhausted, John O’Donohue
• Everything Is Waiting For You, David Whyte
• Lost, David Wagoner
• The Truelove, David Whyte 
• Movement Song, Audre Lorde
• The House, Warsan Shire  
• Ugly, Warsan Shire 
• Sweet Darkness, David Whyte
• Visitors from Abroad, Louise Glück
• [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in], E.E. Cummings
• If You Forget Me, Pablo Neruda
• The Fear of Oneself, Sharon Olds
• Put Out My Eyes, Rainer Maria Rilke
• Birth, Tina Chang
• Coming to This, Mark Strand
• One Art, Elizabeth Bishop 
• I Thought of You, Sara Teasdale 
• A Ritual to Read to Each Other, William E. Stafford 
• A Letter of Recommendation, Yehuda Amichai
• Dream Deferred, Langston Hughes
• Man And Wife, Robert Lowell
• Risk, Anais Nin 
• What Will You Do?, Rainer Maria Rilke
• Still I Rise, Maya Angelou
• In November, Lisel Mueller
• The Work, Nayyirah Waheed
• from “Inserting the Mirror”, Rosmarie Waldrop
• The Waking, Theodore Roethke 
• Love After Love, Derek Walcott
• I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone, Rainer Maria Rilke
• Miracle Fish, Ada Limón
• Translation, Fatemeh Shams
• Domesticity, Catherine Pierce
• “When I imitate myself, I am a number of certain people,” Leslie Sainz
• Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
• Keeping Things Whole, Mark Strand 
• Longing, Mengistu Lema
• “For years my heart inquired of me‚” Hafez
• አብረን ዝም እንበል, Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin
• ይናፍቀኝ ነበር…, Gebre Kristos Desta
• ክራር እና ፍቅር, Ephrem Seyoum
• Enivrez-vous, Charles Baudelaire
• Le Cancre, Jacques Prévert