ORPHANS OF THE LIVING: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care
Reader, beware: Jennifer Toth'sOrphans of the Livingisnota  happy book. In fact, it would be difficult to find a more depressing subject than the  current state of foster care in the United States. Nevertheless, in an age plagued by drastic  governmental cut-backs on social programs--a time in which women and children are by  far the most numerous victims of poverty--the fate of foster children is an important, if  painful, subject. Toth's report from the frontlines of what is known as "substitute  care" is not encouraging; as she follows the lives of five young people as they  move through the system--from Damien, a rape victim at age 8 who becomes a sexual  predator by age 13, to Bryan, who struggles to benefit from one of the country's best  foster programs--Toth's subjects are as heartbreaking as their success is improbable. Toth  has wisely put a human face on the child welfare system's carnage.Make no mistake, Jennifer Toth is angry. She has faith in every child's ability to be  rehabilitated, no matter how damaged, but blames the current foster care system for  inflicting still more hurt on its hapless charges.  Her book is strongest in chronicling the  outrageous breakdowns in a system meant to help, not hurt. So relentless is the misery  outlined inOrphans of the Livingthat by the book's end one wishes Toth had  given the reader some crumbs of hope by proposing concrete ways in which the system  might be improved.