Lists

20 Titles for National Foster Care Month

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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!

  1. Murphy’s Three Homes: A Story for Children in Foster Care by Jan Levinson Gilman, illustrated by Kathy O’Malley
  2. Stellaluna by Jannell Cannon
  3. Maybe Days: A Book for Children in Foster Care by Jennifer Wilgocki and Marcia Kahn Wright, illustrated by Alissa Imre Geis
  4. A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza
  5. The Family Book by Todd Parr
  6. Gertie’s Leap to Greatness by Kate Beasley
  7. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
  8. Finding the Right Spot: When Kids Can’t Live with Their Parents by Janice Levy, illustrated by Whitney Martin
  9. Summer of the Gypsy Months by Sara Pennypacker
  10. The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
  11. The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
  12. Pictures of Hollis Woods Patricia Reilly Giff
  13. Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt
  14. Pax by Sara Pennypacker
  15. All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Connor
  16. One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
  17. Waiting to Forget by Sheila Kelly Welch
  18. Free Verse by Sarah Dooley
  19. Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
  20. Dear Wonderful You, Letters to Adopted & Fostered Youth edited by Diane René Christian and Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman

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