Introduces the people and procedures involved in foster care, and the feelings, reactions, and concerns of new foster children. Includes an afterword for caregivers

A true story of a child's triumph over abandonment and abuse.

"From 1850 to 1930 America witnessed a unique emigration and resettlement of at least 200,00 children and several thousand adults, primarily from the East Coast to the West. This 'placing out,' an attempt to find homes for the urban poor, was best known by the 'orphan trains' that carried the children. Holt carefully analyzes the system, initially instituted by the New York Children's Aid Society in 1853, tracking its imitators as well as the reasons...

Strange occurrences have long surrounded teenage Bran, who learns of his link to a curse created by his murdered mother and strives to make things right, hindered by a ban on magic and pursued by his mother's former masters

Abandoned by her teenage mother in 1954 to a overwhelmingly white charity organization so begins Theresa's life as a 'ward of the state' of New York. She shares the heartbreaking struggle to survive in a foster care system where children's welfare often seemed the lowest priority.

In this twist on "The Nightingale," Little John, despite his own poverty and grief, reaches out to Gayle, an unhappy foster child living next-door who sings beautifully and hides a great secret.

Orphaned Jack Carr finally finds what feels like a real home in the foster care of Professor Hawthorne, who shares his love of magic and admiration of Houdini, but Hawthorne is more interested in the occult and how Jack can save his soul

Orphaned by their mother's death, two Irish Catholic sisters find a home with a kind Protestant couple on the Kansas frontier, but their new life is suddenly threatened by the appearance of their uncle, who is determined to take them back to New York and their "true" religion.