Cover of Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care

Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care

In an eye-opening look at how America cares for its abused and neglected children, Jennifer Toth travels to foster-care homes, orphanages, and juvenile detention centers to record the poignant, often heroic voices of youngsters trying to survive in an overburdened system.Jennifer Toth's first book, The Mole People, spurred federal funding for the homeless living in the tunnels under New York City. Now Toth turns her attention to another hidden population — children trapped in the maze of the "substitute care system".

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Toth takes readers into the lives of shattered families unable or unwilling to care for their children, exposing the inadequacies of government policies and introducing the foster parents, judges, psychologists, and social workers ill-equipped to handle their often bleak jobs. Most important, she presents the kids who, with humor, hope, and resilience, struggle to overcome society's failure to provide for its youngest citizens.

"The strength...lies in her empathy with her subjects, her willingness to let them have their say and the evident determination not to edit out what makes them so difficult to help". — Celia Dugger, The New York Times Book Review

Audience
childrens
Length
medium · 320 pages

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Liked Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System Shares foster care, nonfiction, adoption
  2. One Small Boat: The Story of a Little Girl, Lost Then Found Shares nonfiction, adoption, foster care
  3. The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care Shares nonfiction, foster care, child welfare
  4. Maybe Days: A Book for Children in Foster Care Shares foster care, adoption, nonfiction

“People who read Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Turning Stones: My Days and Nights with Children at Risk
  2. Parenting the Hurt Child : Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow
  3. No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
  4. I Speak for This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate

“If you want more of the same (sociology about adoption), start with these.”

  1. Another Place at the Table
  2. Finding Zoe: A Deaf Woman's Journey of Love, Identity, and Adoption
  3. Black Market Baby: An Adopted Woman's Journey
  4. Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe

“If it was the foster care that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. This is US: The New All-American Family
  2. To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care
  3. One Kid at a Time
  4. Murphy's Three Homes: A Story for Children in Foster Care

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Keesha's House
  2. We Rode the Orphan Trains
  3. Finding Katie: The Diary of Anonymous, A Teenager in Foster Care
  4. No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions