Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 54, April 2016, Pages 86-96
Child Abuse & Neglect

Foster care experiences in youth literature: Literary analysis provides insights into how young people talk about, comprehend, and internalize the phenomenon of foster care

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2015.12.002Get rights and content

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White Oleander (1999) by Janet Fitch

Astrid is a White 12-year-old girl placed in foster care after her mother is charged with murder. Her journey begins as children's services workers come to get her. They give her 15 min to decide what to take from the apartment. She is taken to a group home, where she deals with caseworkers and grapples with the reality of her mother's incarceration. At one point, she finds her roommate rummaging through her belongings, and Astrid puts a knife to her roommate's neck. She learns that to survive,

We Were Here (2009) by Matt de la Peña

After spending time in a juvenile detention center, 16-year-old Miguel Castañeda is placed in a group home. He is required to write in a journal “so some counselor could try to figure out how he thinks.” Miguel grapples with the reality of his crime—having accidentally killed his brother—and is somewhat relieved to be away from his devastated mother. Framed in a journalistic format, with dates rather than chapter headings, readers progress with the main character. Indeed, the readers are able

Ten Mile River (2008) by Paul Griffin

José and Ray are runaway fugitives from foster care and juvenile hall. They are “friends to the end,” watching out for each other: “… a man has to stand by his brother. You survive foster care and juvie together, you stick by each other, you bet you do.” The boys, ages 14 and 15, commit small-time crimes to survive. As far as parents are concerned, they “Don’t got ‘em” and “Don’t need ‘em.” José is older but smaller. He is movie-star handsome and the leader of the pair, charming and

Becoming Naomi León (2004) by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Naomi is a soft-spoken 11-year-old who lives in a Lemon Valley, California, trailer park with her younger brother, Owen, and Gram, their great-grandmother. Life is good except for the boys in her fifth-grade class, who make fun of her name: Naomi Soledad León Outlaw: “‘Hey! It's the Outlaws and one looks like a Mexican bandido. Steal anything lately?”’ Owen has some health issues but is one of the smartest students in his class. Naomi is a reader who enjoys making lists and is a talented soap

Themes

Several common elements emerge in a close reading across these four texts. Narrative themes appear to demonstrate close correspondence with themes that have emerged from recent research. In particular, themes of invisibility; resilience; dual involvement, or ambiguity between child welfare and juvenile justice; and exiting the system and aging out are all prominent in the stories.

Conclusion

Literature in the frame of empirical knowledge provides a needed outlet for understanding real-world experiences beyond statistical tracking, trends, and output measures. The analysis tells us something about how young people talk about, comprehend, and internalize the phenomenon of foster care.

Experiences in foster care are depicted in these texts consistently with what is known from data and research literature in several ways. In particular, themes of resilience, dual system involvement, and

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