discover your next favorite book!
Welcome to the CASA Library. Books can provide valuable insights into the experiences of children in foster care. Below you will find our curated list that explores this topic. These books offer diverse perspectives and narratives, providing a well-rounded understanding of the lived experiences of children in foster care.
Head over to our Continuing Education page to find out details about the next CASANYS book read.
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another place at the table
The startling and ultimately uplifting narrative of one woman's thirteen-year experience as a foster parent.
Another Place at the Table is the story of life at our social services' front lines, centered on three children who, when they come together in Harrison's home, nearly destroy it. It is the frank first-person story of a woman whose compassionate best intentions for a child are sometimes all that stand between violence and redemption.
the child catcher
Eufaula was a place Alabama had refused to surrender. Parents were lured into sending their children there, unable to get them back. Thousands of children went through Eufaula, just as thousands went through the institution that Bridge survived as a boy. The fight for justice led him through squatters’ camps in backwoods and into the lives of families caught in a permanent underclass. He sat with children as they struggled to explain what had gone wrong in their lives. In this David and Goliath battle, The Child Catcher is the story of Bridge’s personal redemption and the hope that justice for children is possible.
the deepest well
The stunning news of Burke Harris’s research is just how deeply our bodies can be imprinted by ACEs—adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, and divorce. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems, and lasts a lifetime. For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do, the fascinating scientific insight and innovative, acclaimed health interventions in The Deepest Well represent vitally important hope for preventing lifelong illness for those we love and for generations to come.
etched in sand
Regina Calcaterra is a successful lawyer, former New York State official, and foster youth activist. Her painful early life, however, was quite different. Regina and her four siblings survived an abusive and painful childhood only to find themselves faced with the challenges of the foster-care system and intermittent homelessness in the shadows of Manhattan and the Hamptons.
foster to friends
Six-year-old Dominic unexpectedly finds himself living with a new family after being placed in foster care. His foster brother, Ezekial, narrates Dominic’s journey from placement to his return home, detailing the challenges he faces adjusting to a new life.
girl unbroken
Regina Calcaterra pairs with her youngest sister, Rosie, to tell Rosie's harrowing yet ultimately triumphant story of childhood abuse and survival. Filled with maturity and grace, Rosie's memoir continues the compelling story begun in Etched in Sand - a shocking yet profoundly moving testament to sisterhood and indomitable courage.
the glass castle
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive.
The memoir was also made into a major motion picture from Lionsgate in 2017 starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts.
hope’s boy
From the moment he was born, Andrew Bridge and his mother, Hope, shared a love so deep that it felt like nothing else mattered. Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old.
invisible child
In Invisible Child, Pulitzer Prize winner Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
misplaced childhood
With its candid look at child welfare and advocacy alongside a personal narrative of healing, Misplaced Childhood opens up new levels of compassion for children suffering from abuse and neglect. Impeccably researched and told with great transparency, empathy, and vulnerability, Misplaced Childhood will inspire readers to embrace the vulnerable inner child in us all and take action for America’s forgotten children.
a place called homE
There are millions of homeless children in America today and in A Place Called Home, award-winning child welfare advocate David Ambroz writes about growing up homeless in New York for eleven years and his subsequent years in foster care, offering a window into what so many kids living in poverty experience every day.
the power of being seen
Author Roger Saillant was a product of the foster care system in the 1950s. In this poignant memoir, he describes his journey with no shortage of emotional baggage, constantly doubting himself and wondering why he is being moved from place to place. Why doesn’t anybody want him? Did he do something wrong? What’s the matter with him? He lives life on a farm where the only thing that matters to his foster father is whether his work gets done – with no regard for the typical nurturing and experiences of a growing child.
spilled milk
Brooke Nolan is a battered child who makes an anonymous phone call about the escalating brutality in her home. When social services jeopardize her safety, condemning her to keep her father's secret, it's a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she's been hiding. In her pursuit of safety and justice, Brooke battles a broken court system that pushes to keep her father in the home.
three little words
An inspiring true story of the tumultuous nine years the author spent in the foster care system, and how she triumphed over painful memories and real-life horrors to ultimately find her own voice. Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative, humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed—and in doing so, discovers the power of speaking out.
to the end of june: the intimate life of american foster care
A New York Times Notable Book, this intimate, authoritative look at the foster care system examines why it is failing the kids it is supposed to protect and what can be done to change it.
Who 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 in their search for a stable, loving family.