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Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care
From Simon & Schuster, Orphans of the Living by Jennifer Toth takes a look at the stories of America's children in foster care.
Toth's work is an important study of the foster care system in America and examines the plight of thousands of children whose parents cannot or will not care for them, revealing the neglect, abuse, and loss of love that affects their lives
Toth's work is an important study of the foster care system in America and examines the plight of thousands of children whose parents cannot or will not care for them, revealing the neglect, abuse, and loss of love that affects their lives
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Jennifer Toth
5 books22 followersJennifer Ninel Toth was an American journalist and writer. She was known for her published studies of homeless people and orphans.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 23, 2009
As someone who spent 10-plus years in the foster care system, I was shocked by this book's list of terrifying stats regarding what happens to foster children upon release... Stats regarding prison time and ability to form relationships and all kinds of dour doomsday shit.
I have always been told by those that know my story that I seemed remarkably OK considering what I had been through. This book seemed to confirm that maybe I couldn't do any better than I was doing. Apparently no-one else was. For that moment that I read these stats, I felt trapped.
I then saw that this author had written another book about "The Mole People" - an investigation of the people who lived underground in New York's subway tunnels. I started to wonder about the author's seriousness regarding her subjects.
I read this book inside the bookstore. I didn't finish it. I didn't buy it. I plan to buy it and read it at some point, but I'm not going to let it be the only book I ever read on the subject.
That said can anyone recommend me some good books about foster care, foster children, adult foster children, adult foster children narratives?
I have always been told by those that know my story that I seemed remarkably OK considering what I had been through. This book seemed to confirm that maybe I couldn't do any better than I was doing. Apparently no-one else was. For that moment that I read these stats, I felt trapped.
I then saw that this author had written another book about "The Mole People" - an investigation of the people who lived underground in New York's subway tunnels. I started to wonder about the author's seriousness regarding her subjects.
I read this book inside the bookstore. I didn't finish it. I didn't buy it. I plan to buy it and read it at some point, but I'm not going to let it be the only book I ever read on the subject.
That said can anyone recommend me some good books about foster care, foster children, adult foster children, adult foster children narratives?
November 12, 2012
Very well written look at the foster care system in several different states. However, if these are the true stories of youth in the child welfare system, the USA needs a complete overhaul of the way they provide care to youth. The situations some of these youth have endured are criminal, there should have been criminal charges, not only on the youth involved but the caregivers, group homes and foster parents who were also involved. I don't understand how anyone can justify the living conditions some of these children were left on there own to endure. How is this even possible when they are supposed to be in care for there own protection? Any youth who has experienced such blatant disregard by the agency that is supposed to be keeping them safe have been abused by the system, sometimes suffering more abuse than if they had been left in the homes of the parents. It is shameful, and the workers who stood by and let this happen should be ashamed of themselves for not protecting the children in their care.
February 29, 2016
Can you imagine the feeling of being neglected by your biological parents? Jennifer Toth’s Orphans of the Living, portrays this feeling in an indescribable way. Orphans of the Living is a non-fiction book based on several children who were placed into large group homes due to instability in their biological homes. Damien Magnum and his four younger siblings were moved into a group home due to neglect by their biological mother. Unfortunately this group home did not provide the stability needed for the children--they were physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by other children in the home. As the children were suffering, they begged to return to their mother’s care in their biological home. However, will their mother better herself enough to gain custody back? Along with the jaw dropping story of these children, the book is also embedded with facts that will linger in your mind for years. This book helped me realize that behind the eyes of every child is a unique story--some not as great as others. It opened my eyes to the reality that abuse and neglect are more common than what most people would like to believe. This book gave me more than I hoped for and I enjoyed reading it. It gives an insight to what the group homes and foster care systems are like in America. It also opened my eyes to how traumatizing the instability can be in the lives of foster care children. This book is a good reminder that not every child is fortunate enough to have a stable biological home. Whether parent, teacher, or anyone who interacts with children on a regular basis, this is a helpful read to understand what some foster children experience.
August 1, 2007
I have been looking for books about child welfare that give a balanced look at the services provided, the families, and the larger systems. This book, while providing a thorough look at a few families/children who experienced foster care, fails to thoroughly look at the worker or system side of things. Most of these children suffer greatly in horrible foster care settings, appear to be mistreated by caseworkers and are failed greatly by the system. It is unfortunate that the author did not show us more about the system itself and the reasons behind certain case work decisions. This is also a pretty dated picture of the Foster Care system and, while some children still suffer the way that these children did, there have also been a lot of improvements.
October 24, 2011
I picked this book up from the free discarded book shelf at the library. I found it very interesting. I was surprised that it had been discarded but I guess it was a little dated. I was especially intrigued by the story of one of the girls that lived at the Middlesex Children's Home because my mother grew up in Middlesex, North Carolina not very far from that very children's home. I've ridden by it several times and even pulled up to it once or twice so that my mother could speak to someone that worked there, but I never saw any children. It looks to be a very depressing place, but for the most part well maintained. Anyway, I like the book because it was informative and caught my interest, but it was very sad.
November 3, 2011
This was not a book for when you want to feel good about being an American. Toth's ethnographies of foster children are painful and truly authentic. My take away from the book is that how we as a society treat "othered" children is literally a crying shame.
"Orphans" was far more moving than "The Mole People" for me. I'm not sure if that's because she's gotten better at her work or because this one is about an even more vulnerable population. Either way, she's an author worth keeping track of.
"Orphans" was far more moving than "The Mole People" for me. I'm not sure if that's because she's gotten better at her work or because this one is about an even more vulnerable population. Either way, she's an author worth keeping track of.
July 6, 2007
This book chronicles the lives of four children in the foster care system, two in NC, one in LA and one in Chicago. The stories are incredible and Toth does an amazing job presenting their lives and stories in a non-judgemental manner. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about the child welfare system in the US.
February 12, 2008
Remarkable book about the travesty that is the American foster care system!
September 3, 2011
A classic and still timely.....
August 15, 2014
decent read but was hoping for my cases than 4
January 14, 2020
This particular book gave me the awkward and unpleasant experience of both deep agreement and deep disagreement with the author about a subject of considerable personal relevance. It is widely acknowledged that the United States has struggled without a great deal of success in dealing with the orphans of the living in various state programs. This book looks at the lives of a handful of people who endured the foster care system of various states and explores how it is that none of them have managed to form lasting and loving bonds with others and that their lives, already traumatic to begin with, only became more traumatic as a result of the experiences that they had through the intervention of the state into their dysfunctional and broken families. It is not clear how it is that one can provide temporary aid to brace families going through trouble without creating lasting patterns of dependency and without giving the government authority that it simply will not be able to use in a manner that ends up helping the people it wishes to help. The author, with her hostility towards biblical Christianity, is not well equipped to point the reader towards solutions, but merely wallows in the failures of the state to properly protect and care for children.
Coming in at about 300 pages long, this book is a narrative look at several cases of children who grew up in foster care as a way of shining a light into the darkness of foster care and its failures. We begin with Damien and Sebastian in Oxford, North Carolina, both part of failed families who had a sort of relationship with each other in a group home and both of whom struggled to relate to their families and keep those families together in the face of the desire for placements. After that the author looks at Jaime, and her struggles to raise herself out of poverty and the failures of her promiscuous and addicted mother, involving some rather conservative religious institutions and her own struggles with rape and alcoholism. The author then looks at the Jerry Springeresque life of Angel, who marries her elderly foster father and has several children as a teenager who, like her, are caught up into the system from the beginning, while seeking to have fun and explore her identity. Finally, the book ends with a look at Bryan, a young man from Chicago who struggles with narcotics and crime but finds people willing to give him chance and encouragement despite his struggles.
In reading a book like this it is worthwhile to wonder what it is that the author expects to be done about the problems that she writes about. On the one hand, it is obvious that she expects society as a whole to be willing to pony up a lot more money to take care of abandoned and neglected and abused children. She recognizes the perverse incentives that people have to disguise the truth in order to get children placed and the ways that social work is often low paying and not filled with a great deal of prestige and that children who are not taken care of by their parents and do not have a strong basis of family and community support are likewise not going to do particularly well. This book shows that the state actively seeks to make life more difficult for people once they are caught in the grips of the foster care system, whether it is children facing abuse in group homes or whether it is the way that children of failed parents love those who are simply unable to take care of them because of their own addictions and brokenness, or whether it is the way that the state has a great deal of power but no sense in how to use it for the benefit of children in breaking cycles of dependency and failure.
Coming in at about 300 pages long, this book is a narrative look at several cases of children who grew up in foster care as a way of shining a light into the darkness of foster care and its failures. We begin with Damien and Sebastian in Oxford, North Carolina, both part of failed families who had a sort of relationship with each other in a group home and both of whom struggled to relate to their families and keep those families together in the face of the desire for placements. After that the author looks at Jaime, and her struggles to raise herself out of poverty and the failures of her promiscuous and addicted mother, involving some rather conservative religious institutions and her own struggles with rape and alcoholism. The author then looks at the Jerry Springeresque life of Angel, who marries her elderly foster father and has several children as a teenager who, like her, are caught up into the system from the beginning, while seeking to have fun and explore her identity. Finally, the book ends with a look at Bryan, a young man from Chicago who struggles with narcotics and crime but finds people willing to give him chance and encouragement despite his struggles.
In reading a book like this it is worthwhile to wonder what it is that the author expects to be done about the problems that she writes about. On the one hand, it is obvious that she expects society as a whole to be willing to pony up a lot more money to take care of abandoned and neglected and abused children. She recognizes the perverse incentives that people have to disguise the truth in order to get children placed and the ways that social work is often low paying and not filled with a great deal of prestige and that children who are not taken care of by their parents and do not have a strong basis of family and community support are likewise not going to do particularly well. This book shows that the state actively seeks to make life more difficult for people once they are caught in the grips of the foster care system, whether it is children facing abuse in group homes or whether it is the way that children of failed parents love those who are simply unable to take care of them because of their own addictions and brokenness, or whether it is the way that the state has a great deal of power but no sense in how to use it for the benefit of children in breaking cycles of dependency and failure.
Did Not Finish
August 18, 2023I think I’ve had this book since it was published, and I put it on my “read-or-die” stack a few years ago. These were books to read or get rid of that year, but the concept didn’t work well for me as I picked books I didn’t especially want to read, but perhaps didn’t want to not read.
Published in 1997, the book is now rather dated. Divided into parts, it includes narrative case studies of children in the foster care system. I only read through Part I (about a quarter of the book.) The attitudes of the period are reflected, including anti-gay attitudes as well as misogyny. In one incident, a 13-year-old girl sneaks into a boy’s room and his friend holds her down while he rapes her. Neither boy is punished or faces any consequence, there is an attitude that the boys need to be protected from a prejudice judicial system, and that the girl is partially to blame. All three children are sent to other homes. The author explains that often past behavior and issues children have had are not shared because it makes the children difficult to place. So issues that result from sexual abuse and neglect go unaddressed and behaviors tends to repeat and get worse as the children are shuffled from place to place.
The book does seem insightful, and if I worked in this field or was studying the topic or was particularly interested in the history of the foster care system, I’d probably be compelled to read it. But as I’m not, I think I’ll DNF.
Published in 1997, the book is now rather dated. Divided into parts, it includes narrative case studies of children in the foster care system. I only read through Part I (about a quarter of the book.) The attitudes of the period are reflected, including anti-gay attitudes as well as misogyny. In one incident, a 13-year-old girl sneaks into a boy’s room and his friend holds her down while he rapes her. Neither boy is punished or faces any consequence, there is an attitude that the boys need to be protected from a prejudice judicial system, and that the girl is partially to blame. All three children are sent to other homes. The author explains that often past behavior and issues children have had are not shared because it makes the children difficult to place. So issues that result from sexual abuse and neglect go unaddressed and behaviors tends to repeat and get worse as the children are shuffled from place to place.
The book does seem insightful, and if I worked in this field or was studying the topic or was particularly interested in the history of the foster care system, I’d probably be compelled to read it. But as I’m not, I think I’ll DNF.
January 20, 2019
This isn't necessarily a book that you enjoy reading. It's a stark look at our country's foster care system, along with the ongoing problems of poverty, racism, abuse, and drugs. It's a sad and frustrating read as the children she follows have almost no chance of improving their outcomes, especially when the adults in their lives continuously abandon them, abuse them, or get them addicted to drugs.
But, for the most part, the author does her best to capture the humanity of these children who have been born into some awful situations. The author seems to be able to separate herself from her subjects in the earlier sections, although that does not hold true in the last two sections.
I do wish I could find a real follow-up on these children she wrote about. While it seems unlikely that they have improved their situations, I was still rooting for them (and at the very least their children.)
But, for the most part, the author does her best to capture the humanity of these children who have been born into some awful situations. The author seems to be able to separate herself from her subjects in the earlier sections, although that does not hold true in the last two sections.
I do wish I could find a real follow-up on these children she wrote about. While it seems unlikely that they have improved their situations, I was still rooting for them (and at the very least their children.)
couldn-t-get-into-it
January 31, 2020I got about halfway through and I felt like I wasn't going to learn anything new. I am a foster/adoptive mom, so I'm not the one who needs convincing that the system needs massive systemic change. Recommended for anyone who wants to learn about foster experiences.
March 20, 2018
Really good but frustrating read which concentrates on the experiences of several children and youth and the experiences they have as they travel through the foster care system.
April 26, 2021
I'd give it a 5 out of 5, for it's well written, but it's just too sad. All in all, though: if you care about kids, you should read this book.
March 10, 2026
Hard to read but an important piece of work that sheds light into the purposely hidden world of foster care
June 12, 2009
I am not sure how to rate this book. It was well written and kept my attention, but at times I had questions about the situations presented that were not answered. The situations are complicated and I am sure that each child could have filled a book with their own details, so I tried to look past the questions I had. The part I found the most interesting was the statistics in the first chapter. How bleak! Overall, this book spurred many conversations in our house and is still causing some restless nights.
October 16, 2013
I'm not sure if I liked this book, but I don't know how else to rate it. While it's very well written, the content is horrifying, simply horrifying. I often think God must constantly weep at how His little children are treated.
Read
March 21, 2017Yes, this is an accurate, although sad, recounting of what children face in Foster Care. We need reform and we need it now. A Great book if you want a better understanding about what kids face when their parents are absent.
March 13, 2008
It makes one think about the forgotten children
March 16, 2009
This topic is among my faves. I like journalistic writing sometimes when I need a break from denser tomes and this book does a great job illuminating a pretty difficult topic.
April 12, 2017
Written in 1997. Very critical of the child welfare system. Many laws have changed since this time. I sincerely hope this book does not reflect current operations.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews