Foster Care System

Orange Is the New Black meets Walter Dean Myer’s Monster in this gritty, twisty, and haunting debut by Tiffany D. Jackson about a girl convicted of murder seeking the truth while surviving life in a group home. Mary B. Addison killed a baby. Allegedly. She didn’t say much in that first...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER One of The Economist’s Best Books of the Year! In this “affecting…intriguing…heartbreaking” (Booklist) coming-of-age memoir, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities, and pioneering the...

As a teenager, Kristin Berry had heard all the horror stories surrounding foster care and adoption - abuse, neglect, rejection, anger, and misunderstandings. But instead of closing her heart, God opened it wide. This is Kristin's honest, unvarnished story of some of her experiences as a foster parent of 23 children over the course of nine years. What she learned is that living in a foster home is like living with a revolving door. You never know who will arrive or who you will have to say goodbye to. Leaving the door open means there will be heartache and pain, but also adventure and unexpected joy.

The American child welfare system is bent toward protecting adults, not children. Kids in danger are treated instrumentally to promote the rehabilitation of their parents, the welfare of their communities, and the social justice of their race and tribe. It is time to stop letting efforts to fix the child welfare system get derailed by activists who are concerned with race-matching, blood ties, and the abstract demands of social justice, and start asking the most important question: Where are the emotionally and financially stable, loving, and permanent homes where kids can thrive?

If you are considering adoption or foster care or are already somewhere in this difficult and complicated process, you need trusted information from people who have been where you are. Mike and Kristin Berry have adopted eight children and cared for another 23 kids in their nine-year stint as foster parents. They aren't just experts. They have experienced every emotional high and low and encountered virtually every situation imaginable as parents. Now, they want to share what they've learned with you.

Shenandoah Chefalo is on a wholly dysfunctional journey through a childhood with neglectful, drug- and alcohol-addicted parents. She endures numerous moves in the middle of the night with just minutes to pack, multiple changes in schools, hunger, cruelty, and loneliness. Finally at the age of 13, Shen had had enough. After being abandoned by her mother for months at her grandmother's retirement community, she asks to be put into foster care. Surely she would fare better at a stable home than living with her mother?

“Taut, emotionally intense, and wholly believable, this beautiful and uplifting debut” (Kirkus Reviews) about a young black boy’s quest to reunite with his beloved white half-brother after they are separated in foster care is a sparkling novel perfect for fans of The Language of Flowers...

“I'm sucked in and committed to finding out where Wynter's story with her brothers is headed.” - Goodreads reviewer Gone in a heartbeat… After 8 months on the outside, Wynter is gaining confidence as she opens up to her brothers about her childhood, and even manipulates their useless father into stepping up at last. Yet her sister Joy finds life away from the cult increasingly difficult. She reveals a secret about someone from Wynter’s past, forever altering the family dynamics. When a horrific accident threatens to tear everything apart, will Wynter's dreams of a happy family be ...

Kek comes from Africa. In America, he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He’s never walked on ice, and he falls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter–cold and unkind. In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his...

Some children scream. Maya Sanders didn’t. At just seven years old, Maya is returned to a home filled with shadows—and when the system checks the boxes, she says nothing. Not because she’s okay. Because she knows silence is safer. When Maya is placed with Janine Thompkins, a foster mother who sees beyond behavior, a quiet war begins—not just for custody, but for truth. As Janine uncovers what Maya cannot say, she faces a system designed to measure compliance, not pain. A devastating, lyrical novel about the cost of being unheard—and the quiet revolution it takes to be free. Some ...

How to end homelessness in America: a must-read guide to understanding housing instability, supporting our unhoused neighbors, and reclaiming our humanity. A deeply humanizing analysis that will change the way you think about poverty and homelessness—for the socially engaged reader of Isabel...

A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel, The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past. The...

🌿 Roots Without Soil: A Memoir by Devon R. Browning “How do you grow when the ground keeps shifting beneath you?” In this raw, unflinching, and deeply moving memoir, Devon R. Browning invites readers into the untold world of foster care—not from the perspective of a caseworker or policy maker, but from the heart of a child who lived it. Roots Without Soil traces Devon’s journey from a little girl with big feelings and no place to land, to a young woman navigating psychiatric hospitals, group homes, broken systems, and generational silence. From being labeled “too much” to ...

The heartbreaking, iconic true story of an abandoned little boy’s horrific journey through the American foster care system. On a misty evening in Brooklyn, Jennings Michael Burch’s mother, too sick to care for him, left her eight-year-old son at an orphanage with the words, “I’ll be...

An award-winning scholar exposes the foundational racism of the child welfare system and calls for radical change Many believe the child welfare system protects children from abuse. But as Torn Apart uncovers, this system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of...

Maryann Petri continues to champion parents and families abused by family court. She is also exposing the entities that feed the money machine courts have become in our country and around the world. Through her podcast, Slam The Gavel, Maryann provides an ever-growing platform that gives voice to all those who have a story to share that brings forth change. Raised By These Wolves Vol II is the second in her series which contains 25 chapters filled with the true experiences of people she has met on her podcast and through crisis calls. This second volume focuses on the human trafficking ...

Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children in their search for a stable, loving family. Beam shows us the intricacies of growing up in the system - the back-and-forth with agencies, the rootless shuffling between homes, the emotionally charged tug between foster and birth parents.

They kept him on paper. Then there was a note. Khalil never meant to stand out. He was supposed to be a temporary placement — a file, a wristband, a number waiting for someone else’s signature. At Hillside Youth Center, rules are posted like scripture, and silence is the safest language. His case manager thought paperwork was protection — until the day Khalil’s file came back with a note that shouldn’t exist. One missing line becomes a trail of vanishing reports, locked offices, and threats disguised as policy. As the clock runs out on his “temporary” stay, both of them are ...

Lara was seven when her birth mother died from a drug overdose. With no extended family to look after her, she was put into foster care. The care system failed Lara and now she is failing her son. Lara and her one-year-old son, Arthur, are brought to experienced foster carer, Cathy Glass, by...

Breeanna's life was marked by homelessness, addiction, and survival on the streets of Georgetown. Living in a deteriorating motorhome and caught in a volatile relationship with her boyfriend, Anthony, she faced overwhelming challenges. When she became pregnant, she knew she couldn’t care for her child. Desperate for support, she turned to her father, who entrusted the baby to compassionate family friends—a devoted couple determined to provide the love and stability the infant needed to recover from opioid withdrawal. But their efforts were upended when Anthony emerged from jail, ...