It's the summer, but the country finds itself in solemn times following recent events. Sometimes, there's no better way to escape then to crawl into a book. Especially in this chaotic world, these are the five must reads that connect to today's world.

1. Kindred – Octavia E. Butler

This book has so much rich content and will make you cringe, cry and wanting more. It is about a young African American woman who is stuck between her home in California in the late 70’s and a pre-Civil war plantation in Maryland. In Maryland she finds her ancestors, who are slaves. She has to survive on the plantation as well as live with the challenge of traveling from her current time and the past.

2. Clay’s Ark - Octavia E. Butler

This book draws you in at page one. It is about a family who is stopped unexpectedly on a highway. They then find out a microorganism is invading Earth that can either kill or give you special abilities if you survive it. The family meets a colony of survivors who are trying to spread. The events afterward lead the family to stay with them.

3. The Year of the Quiet Sun – Wilson Tucker

This book gets heavy, but you won’t really know until the end. It is about a time traveler who goes to different political and social events in the future. Individually the main character and his team travels, each having a different experience. See how their experiences differ and how the future unfolds.

4. The Giver - Lois Lowry

I actually read this book when I was in 7^th grade, but I recently re-read it as well as saw the movie. It is about a society where everything seems the same and all children are placed in what career they will go to. However, there is one kid who seems to be different—he feels certain things and sees certain things that are different than everyone else in his society.

5. A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L’Engle

This is an interesting and magical book. It is about a girl who seems to be very different than all of her classmates—and for that matter, her family. She seems to see things and experience things no one else has (or that we know of). Her dad, a scientist, has gone missing during a project called the tesseract—he travels in time!

Now that it’s summer, I say you pick one of these books up and start reading! They all make you think, are extremely intriguing and all have ties in what you may see on the news and social media today. These five books have definitely changed my life (for the better) in that I have become a more conscientious, appreciative and caring person.