20 Titles for National Foster Care Month
I’m always looking for ways to create book lists that I think are needed by people around the world, so when I saw that May is National Foster Care Month, I knew it would be a great time to gather some titles that show kids in foster care. I tried to provide some picture books, early chapter books, middle grade novels and teen novels – mainly focused on a story where foster care is part of a character’s life rather than focusing on too many “issue” type books where the book was written specifically to address the issue. I did include a few, that I found multiple times on other reading lists and didn’t think I should ignore.
Now a quick caveat, there are as many different types of foster care situations as there are people, so even though I tried to provide a diverse list, the number of books about foster care are slim. I also tried very hard to focus on foster care, rather than adoption because (although some stories end with adoption) not all stories end that way and I wanted to be able to offer some kids mirrors for what their own lives look like right now. So, if I missed something that you think should be on the list, please share it, so that others will get your recommendations as well!
- Murphy’s Three Homes: A Story for Children in Foster Care by Jan Levinson Gilman, illustrated by Kathy O’Malley
- Stellaluna by Jannell Cannon
- Maybe Days: A Book for Children in Foster Care by Jennifer Wilgocki and Marcia Kahn Wright, illustrated by Alissa Imre Geis
- A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza
- The Family Book by Todd Parr
- Gertie’s Leap to Greatness by Kate Beasley
- The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
- Finding the Right Spot: When Kids Can’t Live with Their Parents by Janice Levy, illustrated by Whitney Martin
- Summer of the Gypsy Months by Sara Pennypacker
- The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
- The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
- Pictures of Hollis Woods Patricia Reilly Giff
- Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt
- Pax by Sara Pennypacker
- All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Connor
- One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
- Waiting to Forget by Sheila Kelly Welch
- Free Verse by Sarah Dooley
- Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
- Dear Wonderful You, Letters to Adopted & Fostered Youth edited by Diane René Christian and Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman
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Sheila Welch
Hi! Thanks for including my novel, WAITING TO FORGET on this list. Here are links to two different but complementary book trailers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uimzgjp5QvE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7vaLRbcYUQ
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