To the end of June: the intimate life of American foster care

Book Cover
Average Rating
Author
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Language
English

Description

"A triumph of narrative reporting and storytelling. . . .  Beam gives [foster children] a much-needed voice and does what too many adults in the foster-care system can't, or won't: She advocates for them." -- New York Times Book ReviewWho 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 at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.The book mirrors the life cycle of a foster child and so begins with the removal of babies and kids from birth families. There’s a teenage birth mother in Texas who signs away her parental rights on a napkin only to later reconsider, crushing the hopes of her baby’s adoptive parents. Beam then paints an unprecedented portrait of the intricacies of growing up in the system—the back-and-forth with agencies, the shuffling between pre-adoptive homes and group homes, the emotionally charged tug of prospective adoptive parents and the fundamental pull of birth parents. And then what happens as these system-reared kids become adults? Beam closely follows a group of teenagers in New York who are grappling with what aging out will mean for them and meets a woman who has parented eleven kids from the system, almost all over the age of eighteen, and all still in desperate need of a sense of home and belonging.Focusing intensely on a few foster families who are deeply invested in the system’s success, To the End of June is essential for humanizing and challenging a broken system, while at the same time it is a tribute to resiliency and offers hope for real change.

More Details

Contributors
Beam, Cris Author
ISBN
9780151014125
9780547999531

Table of Contents

From the Book

Catch. King Solomon's baby ; Eye of the beholder ; Timing is anything ; Drugs in the system ; Catch as catch can
Hold. Surge control ; Chutes and ladders and chutes ; Arrested in development ; Taking agency ; Homespun
Release. Fantasy islands ; There's something about Mary ; Experiment ; Touching the elephant ; Last call.

Discover More

Excerpt

Loading Excerpt...

Similar Titles From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for titles you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
These books have the genres "family and relationships -- abuse" and "life stories -- facing adversity -- abuse survivors"; and the subjects "child abuse victims" and "child abuse."
These books have the appeal factors emotionally intense, thoughtful, and issue-oriented, and they have the genres "family and relationships -- abuse" and "family and relationships -- parenting -- adoption"; and the subject "child welfare."
These books have the genre "family and relationships -- parenting -- adoption"; and the subjects "foster home care," "foster children," and "child welfare."
Though Another Place at the Table is a more intimate memoir, it is another richly detailed book about foster care featuring emotionally powerful stories of neglected children and nuanced discussions of the complex legal and bureaucratic hurdles within the system. -- Derek Keyser
These harrowing, insightful, and well-researched books examine problems within the foster care system and the devastating consequences for foster children. Drawing on touching true stories, both books offer thought-provoking discussions of broader issues including outdated laws and discrimination against underprivileged parents. -- Derek Keyser
These books have the appeal factors impassioned, thoughtful, and issue-oriented, and they have the genres "life stories -- relationships -- family" and "family and relationships -- parenting -- adoption"; and the subjects "foster home care," "foster children," and "child welfare."
These books have the appeal factors emotionally intense, and they have the genres "family and relationships -- abuse" and "life stories -- facing adversity -- abuse survivors"; and the subjects "foster home care," "foster children," and "foster care."
These books have the appeal factors impassioned, thoughtful, and issue-oriented, and they have the genre "family and relationships -- parenting -- adoption"; and the subjects "foster home care," "foster children," and "child welfare."
These books have the appeal factors impassioned, persuasive, and issue-oriented, and they have the genres "family and relationships -- abuse" and "family and relationships -- parenting -- adoption"; and the subjects "foster home care," "foster children," and "child welfare."
These heart-wrenching books examine social programs through which neglected children are placed into new homes. Each features thoughtful discussions of complex social issues and a nuanced, comprehensive, and compassionate approach that incorporates multiple sides. -- Derek Keyser
These books have the genres "family and relationships -- parenting -- adoption" and "life stories -- relationships -- family"; and the subjects "foster home care," "foster children," and "child welfare."
These books have the subjects "child welfare," "foster care," and "institutional care."

Similar Authors From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for other authors you might want to read if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
These authors' works have the appeal factors emotionally intense, and they have the subjects "emotional problems of teenagers" and "nonbinary people."
These authors' works have the genre "realistic fiction"; and the subjects "emotional problems of teenagers," "foster home care," and "friendship."
These authors' works have the appeal factors emotionally intense, serious, and issue-oriented, and they have the genre "realistic fiction"; the subjects "emotional problems of teenagers," "teenagers," and "teenage boys"; and characters that are "authentic characters."
These authors' works have the appeal factors emotionally intense, serious, and issue-oriented, and they have the genre "realistic fiction"; the subjects "emotional problems of teenagers" and "teenage girls"; and characters that are "authentic characters."

Published Reviews

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Whenever newspaper headlines scream about the abuse of foster children, the public is outraged, child protection agencies radically change their policies, and poor children go on living in a hodgepodge of foster care and suffering myriad unintended consequences, according to Beam, whose background includes a fractured childhood and experience as a foster mother. Here she offers a very intimate look at a system little known to most people. Beam spent five years talking to foster children, parents and foster parents, and social workers, mostly in New York. Her profiles include Bruce and Allyson, with three children of their own, taking in as many as five foster children, and Steve and Erin, fostering a child they want to adopt, whose mother signed away her rights on a napkin. Beam also writes about teens who've been bounced from home to home, some longing for adoption, others sabotaging their chances out of fear, many hoping for promised aging-out bonuses. Beam offers historical background and keen analysis of the social, political, racial, and economic factors that drive foster-care policies, noting the recent swing from massive removals to support for keeping families together. A very moving, powerful look at a system charged with caring for nearly half a million children across the U.S.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Powered by Syndetics

Publisher's Weekly Review

Castaway kids and adult caretakers piece together fragile bonds in this heart-wrenching panorama of American foster families. Beam (Transparent: Love, Family and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers), herself a former teen runaway and sometime foster parent, paints sympathetic but clear-eyed portraits of everyone impacted by the foster-care system: biological parents who lose their children because they are deemed unfit to care for them, or because they have issues with drug abuse, poverty, or are incarcerated; inexperienced, overworked case workers who determine the fate of their charges based on fuzzy and clashing guidelines; and foster parents and the kids they shelter, both sides wary of the strangers who come into their lives but hopeful of forming nurturing homes. Beam analyzes how foster-care systems seesaw between draconian child-removal policies and initiatives to keep families intact, and dissects the contradictory laws and regulations that keep kids shuttling for years among different homes with little chance to form stable attachments. The core of the book is Beam's subtle, evocative reportage on the emotional travails of foster homes, especially the mixed feelings of anxiety, hope, resentment, and guilt that roil kids when transferring their affections from dysfunctional biological relatives to provisional foster parents. Beam presents both a sharp critique of foster-care policies and a searching exploration of the meaning of family. Agent: Amy Williams, McCormick & Williams. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Powered by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

Journalist Beam examines what is needed to improve the way we care for troubled families and children. The author became a licensed foster parent in 2001 when, as a high school teacher, she found it the only way to provide a home for her 17-year-old transvestite student. Prompted by this experience, she went on to spend five years exploring the contradictions within the child welfare system, seeking to find out why the 500,000 kids in American foster care were "twice as likely to develop Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" as combat veterans. Following the lives of foster children, meeting their natural and foster parents, and interviewing experts, Beam developed a broad overview. Intended to be a temporary arrangement, foster care frequently fails to lead either to resolution of the biological parents' problems and restoration of the birth family or to the children's permanent adoption into a new home. The most common causes for failure are birth mothers' reluctance to sign adoption papers, foster parents' inability to manage disturbed children and abusive foster homes. Child-protection workers are poorly paid, overworked and undertrained, Beam notes. They can be charged with criminal neglect for not removing endangered children from their homes, but sometimes they remove children unnecessarily (e.g., on suspicion of a parent's drug use or neglect). Beam attributes some of the unnecessary removal cases to racial bias, and she reports instances of biological parents reappearing on the scene when foster parents were in the process of adopting children and of teenagers, adopted by foster parents, who ran away to their birth parents. Despite such problems, the author is optimistic that progress can be made by addressing the problems of impoverished families and providing "better schools, better libraries, after-school care, neighborhood resources--anything that touches social reform touches foster care too." An engrossing, well-researched examination of important social issues.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Powered by Syndetics

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Whenever newspaper headlines scream about the abuse of foster children, the public is outraged, child protection agencies radically change their policies, and poor children go on living in a hodgepodge of foster care and suffering myriad unintended consequences, according to Beam, whose background includes a fractured childhood and experience as a foster mother. Here she offers a very intimate look at a system little known to most people. Beam spent five years talking to foster children, parents and foster parents, and social workers, mostly in New York. Her profiles include Bruce and Allyson, with three children of their own, taking in as many as five foster children, and Steve and Erin, fostering a child they want to adopt, whose mother signed away her rights on a napkin. Beam also writes about teens who've been bounced from home to home, some longing for adoption, others sabotaging their chances out of fear, many hoping for promised aging-out bonuses. Beam offers historical background and keen analysis of the social, political, racial, and economic factors that drive foster-care policies, noting the recent swing from massive removals to support for keeping families together. A very moving, powerful look at a system charged with caring for nearly half a million children across the U.S. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.
Powered by Content Cafe

Library Journal Reviews

A Lambda Literary Award-winning journalist and foster mother, Beam uses individualized stories to clarify how badly our current foster care system fails the half-million children in its charge.

[Page 57]. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Powered by Content Cafe

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Castaway kids and adult caretakers piece together fragile bonds in this heart-wrenching panorama of American foster families. Beam (Transparent: Love, Family and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers), herself a former teen runaway and sometime foster parent, paints sympathetic but clear-eyed portraits of everyone impacted by the foster-care system: biological parents who lose their children because they are deemed unfit to care for them, or because they have issues with drug abuse, poverty, or are incarcerated; inexperienced, overworked case workers who determine the fate of their charges based on fuzzy and clashing guidelines; and foster parents and the kids they shelter, both sides wary of the strangers who come into their lives but hopeful of forming nurturing homes. Beam analyzes how foster-care systems seesaw between draconian child-removal policies and initiatives to keep families intact, and dissects the contradictory laws and regulations that keep kids shuttling for years among different homes with little chance to form stable attachments. The core of the book is Beam's subtle, evocative reportage on the emotional travails of foster homes, especially the mixed feelings of anxiety, hope, resentment, and guilt that roil kids when transferring their affections from dysfunctional biological relatives to provisional foster parents. Beam presents both a sharp critique of foster-care policies and a searching exploration of the meaning of family. Agent: Amy Williams, McCormick & Williams. (Aug.)

[Page ]. Copyright 2013 PWxyz LLC

Copyright 2013 PWxyz LLC
Powered by Content Cafe

Reviews from GoodReads

Loading GoodReads Reviews.

Staff View

Loading Staff View.