BETTER THAN WE FOUND IT

A personal guide to social justice.

Married couple Porsche and Frederick Joseph team up to introduce a teen audience to some of the most important topics facing this country and the world. Dividing the chapters between themselves, each author includes a long personal narrative in which they share stories from their lives or the lives of their friends interspersed with historical and political context. Each chapter ends with interviews with famous people involved in the different issues, for example, Julián Castro on housing security, Chelsea Clinton on disinformation, and Mari Copeny on water access. The issues are all crucial, but despite the emphasis on change, the text feels more overwhelming than inspiring. Each chapter encourages readers to go to an online tool kit (unavailable at the time of review); the actions named in the book are largely on an individual scale and focus heavily on language and social media posts. The chapters that hew closely to the authors’ own experiences are stronger than those that don’t; for example, the chapters on student debt and the military-industrial complex are fascinating and thorough, while the one on homophobia focuses exclusively on cis gay men, and the one about gender identity features two trans women and one cis man. The broad range of topics covered makes what is missing or given only glancing mention (e.g., antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Asian racism, and reproductive rights) more glaring.

A mostly useful resource.