NCW Libraries

An intimate, authoritative look at the foster care system that examines why it is failing the kids it is supposed to protect and what can be done to change it.

In 1856, having traveled with his young sister from New York to a foster home on a farm in Missouri, ten-year-old Danny plots to get his foster father to send for and marry his mother.

Rynn was born with a hole in her heart--literally. Although it was fixed long ago, she still feels an emptiness there when she wonders about her birth family. As her relationship with her adoptive mother fractures, Rynn finally decides she needs to know more about the rest of her family. Her search starts with a name, the only thing she has from her birth mother, and she quickly learns that she has a younger sister living in foster care in a nearby...

"Krista Galloway has a good reason to dislike the holiday season, but when her new job as city manager forces her to plan the town's over-the-top Christmas celebration, she and her daughter may find a new home -- and some Christmas spirit -- in the process" --

"Katherine Parker is on the cusp of having everything she ever wanted - fame, money, and acclaim. So why isn't she happy? In search of answers, she comes incognito to Hope Harbor on the Oregon coast for some R&R. Maybe in her secluded rental house overlooking the serene Pacific she'll be able to calm the storm inside. Coffee shop owner Zach Garrett has found his niche after a traumatic loss - and he has no plans to change the life he's created. Nor...

Separated from his aging caregiver grandfather and placed in a foster home, Prez forges an unusual friendship with an alien who appears as a dog to everyone else and entreats Prez to help compile a list of Earth's redeeming qualities to prevent the planet from being destroyed.

"Lauren Gabriel spent many years of her childhood in foster homes, wishing her mother would come back for her and be the family she needs. Now twenty-years-old, she still longs for a place that she can truly call home. Her work as a cashier is unfulfilling, and at Christmas it's unbearable with the songs and carols and chatter of Christmas that she hears throughout the day. When Lauren ends her shift one night, she finds herself driving aimlessly...

In the first book of its kind, Toth presents the stories of five kids caught in a system in crisis, and chronicles the complexities of a culture that both liberates and hobbles its dependents. In addition to speaking to social workers, judges, officers, counselors, and psychologists, as well as to the remnants of shattered families who can't or won't raise their own children, Toth goes directly to the kids - capturing their voices and lives with striking...