Somebody Else's Children : The Courts, the Kids, and the Struggle to Save America's Troubled Families

Rating:
Summary: This is a superb book!
Review: I have been in the field for over 20 years and this is the most accurate account of the Juvenile Justice system. The stories are real and moving. I could not put this book down. I did not agree with everything in the book, however, if you want to know the real story then this is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book!
Review: I randomly came across this book in the library while looking up something else. I thumbed through it a bit and then ended up checking it out and taking it home, where I have proceeded to read it almost constantly over the last couple of days (with occasional breaks for comparatively less compelling things like eating, sleep, class, and hanging out with friends). I'm always a bookworm and am used to becoming absorbed in what I read. However, this is the first time in quite awhile that I've been so caught up in a book, particularly a non-fiction book.

I like this book so much because the authors worked hard at giving a thorough and unbiased look at the juvenile justice system and the kids stuck in that system. Of course, remaining completely unbiased is impossible; however, they tried to give a variety of points of view. They also tried to keep from vilifying any one group (parents, children, social workers, judges, police, the community, and so on), while still indicating the complexity of the problem. Case-studies were carefully chosen not to be sensational, but rather to exemplify the typical issues dealt with by kids in the justice system. Finally, they interspersed the information from the case studies with general information about the law, the way such cases are usually handled, and so on, then applied this new information that they had given back to the case study. This made it possible to learn a great deal about the system in general, while keeping it interesting because you could see the immediate application to one particular kid that you had learned about. This added to the book's general readability. All in all, this book is an excellent, well-written book that has the possibility of moving us a long way towards an understanding of these complex issues.

Rating:
Summary: Compulsively Readable
Review: This is a textbook of the juvenile dependency system that reads like a page-turner novel. I was unable to put it down for 2 days. The authors' treatment of their material is even-handed and true-to-life. I have worked for the past 4 years as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate and Guardian Ad Litem for these children in my local juvenile court and the cases featured in the book closely mirror the actual cases I've seen over and over again in the courts. The book raises problems in the system to which there are no easy answers, and the authors don't attempt to offer any simplistic solutions: What does the system do with severely emotionally disturbed kids who blow through one placement after another? How do you know when to give up on parents and terminate parental rights? Do you wait until the child's crucial childhood years are mostly over, waiting for the parents to get their act together? How do we place children in good homes when there is such a shortage of foster and adoptive families? I urge anyone interested to get involved with the system as a volunteer. There are over 700 advocate programs around the country and the minimum time commitment is only 12 hours a month.