Rating: 
Summary: Toth's book graphically illustrates the evils of foster care
Review: Unfortunately today, society is no longer surprised by the thought of child neglect or abuse. Such stories are found in the local and national news daily. However, Jennifer 's Orphans of the Living, demands that the issues of child neglect and foster care must not be merely labeled as 3old news.2 The author immerses the reader into the minds of four young people who have grown up within the realm of foster care. Their graphic and heart-piecing anecdotes, clearly relay Toth1s belief that substitute child care does not usually lead the child to happiness or normalcy. Through the stories of these kids, she instead depicts how the foster care system often concentrates more on reputation and politics than the well-being of the children. Toth provides not a more lucid image of the orphans' psychology, but also on juvenile criminality and violence. Her studies support that abused kids are reduced to thinking that violence will award them with the love and attention of their parents. This book will definitely cause you to view juvenile criminal offenders with new eyes. Orphan1s of the Living will indeed devour you with its gross and often unbearable rawness. However, as Troth has dutifully acknowledged, we owe it to these kids to hear their stories.
Rating: 
Summary: There are no easy answers
Review: Yes, Toth illuminates a good many problems with "the system." But the book also illustrates the complexity of some of the cases the system is expected to "fix." Caseworkers in training and in continuing ed would do well to get together and discuss the story of Angel, studying the various decisions made along the way in handling her case and debating what the system should have done, or even could have done, to protect and rehabilitate her.
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