Foster Care Fiction for Young Readers
Discover the best foster care fiction for young readers, featuring heartfelt stories by Jacqueline Woodson, Lois Lowry, and Sharon Creech. Explore powerful tales of resilience, family, and hope in this curated list of juvenile and YA books, including 'Locomotion,' 'Pictures of Hollis Woods,' and 'Ruby Holler.' Perfect for kids, teens, and educators seeking meaningful reads on fostering and belonging.
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The Pinballs
by Betsy Byars
You can't always decide where life will take you--especially when you're a kid. Carlie knows she's got no say in what happens to her. Stuck in a foster home with two other kids, Harvey and Thomas J, she's just a pinball being bounced from bumper to bumper. As soon as you get settled, somebody puts another coin in the machine and off you go again. But against her will and her better judgment, Carlie and the boys become friends. And all three of them start to see that they can take control of their own Iives. Carlie knows she's got no say in what happens to her. Stuck in a foster home with two other kids, Harvey and Thomas J, she's just a pinball being bounced from bumper to bumper. As soon as you get settled, somebody puts another coin in the machine and off you go again. But against her will and her beter judgement, Carlie and the boys become friends. And all three of them start to see that they can take control of their own lives.
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The Great Gilly Hopkins
by Katherine Paterson
Eleven-year-old Gilly has been stuck in more foster families than she can remember, and she's disliked them all. She has a county-wide reputation for being brash, brilliant, and completely unmanageable. So when she's sent to live with the Trotters -- by far the strangest family yet -- Gilly decides to put her sharp mind to work. Before long she's devised an elaborate scheme to get her real mother to come rescue her. But the rescue doesn't work out, and the great Gilly Hopkins is left thinking that maybe life with the Trotters wasn't so bad ...
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The Last Chance Texaco
by Brent Hartinger
The guy looked at me with a stare that would have frozen antifreeze. "You the new groupie, huh?" "Yeah," I said. "So?" "So no one wants you here. Why don't you go back where you came from?" I can't go back, I wanted to say. That was the thing about living in a group home. There was nowhere for me to go but forward. Brent Hartinger's second novel, a portrait of a subculture of teenagers that many people would like to forget, is as powerful and provocative as his first book, Geography Club.
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Pictures of Hollis Woods
by Patricia Reilly Giff
This Newbery Honor book about a girl who has never known family fighting for her first true home “will leave readers . . . satisfied” (Kirkus Reviews). Hollis Woods is the place where a baby was abandoned is the baby’s name is an artist is now a twelve-year-old girl who’s been in so many foster homes she can hardly remember them all. When Hollis is sent to Josie, an elderly artist who is quirky and affectionate, she wants to stay. But Josie is growing more forgetful every day. If Social Services finds out, they’ll take Hollis away and move Josie into a home. Well, Hollis Woods won’t let anyone separate them. She’s escaped the system before; this time, she’s taking Josie with her. Still, even as she plans her future with Josie, Hollis dreams of the past summer with the Regans, fixing each special moment of her days with them in pictures she’ll never forget. Patricia Reilly Giff captures the yearning for a place to belong in this warmhearted story, which stresses the importance of artistic vision, creativity, and above all, family.
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Anna Casey's Place in the World
by Adrian Fogelin
For use in schools and libraries only. Anna, a twelve-year-old girl with strong survival instincts, tries to adjust to life in a Florida foster home in a strange neighborhood with an overly tidy single woman and Eb, another foster child who is not at all sure he wants to stay there.
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The Sorta Sisters
by Adrian Fogelin
In Florida, Anna Casey lives with what she hopes is the last in a long line of foster mothers, and Mica Delano lives with her father on their small boat, and when the two of them begin corresponding, they discover they have a lot in common.
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Grover G. Graham and Me
by Mary Quattlebaum
With compassion and wry humor, this moving story follows an 11-year-old boy'sjourney through the foster care system and describes how he forms a bond withthe baby boy in his current foster home.
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The Very Worst Thing
by Torey L. Hayden
David has never had a permanent home or a real friend, but when he decides to try to hatch an owl egg with the help of a classmate, his life slowly begins to change for the better.
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Finding Stinko
by Michael de Guzman
Having spent his life trying to escape the foster care system, eventually becoming mute to keep out of trouble, twelve-year-old Newboy finally hits the streets, where a discarded ventriloquist's dummy gives him back his voice and his hope.
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I'll Sing You One-o
by Nan Gregory
Twelve-year-old Gemma doesn’t know where to turn. She is being adopted by relatives she didn’t know she had. The foster family she has loved all her life is breaking up. The farm where they’ve lived is being sold. Gemma needs to fix things fast--if she can only figure out how. Now she has found the solution: she’ll get herself an angel. Her increasingly desperate efforts to earn one, by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, lead her to a confrontation with her painfully mysterious past, and ultimately to an understanding with her new family that holds out hope for them all. This engrossing novel offers a fresh and winning portrait of a quirky heroine with a unique voice, a passionate heart, a mission to accomplish, and the kind of offbeat logic that can cause even the most careful plans to go awry.
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The Story of Tracy Beaker
by Jacqueline Wilson
First published: Great Britain: Doubleday, 1991.
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Gossamer
by Lois Lowry
While learning to bestow dreams, a young dream giver tries to save an eight-year-old boy from the effects of both his abusive past and the nightmares inflicted on him by the frightening Sinisteeds. 100,000 first printing.
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The Boy From the Basement
by Susan Shaw
For Charlie, the cold, dark basement is home. Father has kept him locked in there as punishment. Charlie doesn’t intend to leave, but when he is accidentally thrust outside, he awakens to the alien surroundings of a world to which he’s never before been exposed. Though haunted by hallucinations, fear of the basement, and his father’s rage, Charlie must find a way to survive in his new world. He has escaped his past, but his journey has just begun.
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Locomotion
by Jacqueline Woodson
In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.
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Peace, Locomotion
by Jacqueline Woodson
Through letters to his little sister, who is living in a different foster home, sixth-grader Lonnie, also known as "Locomotion," keeps a record of their lives while they are apart, describing his own foster family, including his foster brother who returns home after losing a leg in the Iraq War.
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Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me
by Julie Johnston
“If you don’t want your heart broken, don’t let on you have one.” Sara Moone is an expert on broken hearts. She is a foster child who has been bounced from home to home, but now she is almost sixteen and can not live in the system forever. She vows that she will live in a cold, white place where nobody can hurt her again. But there is one more placement in store for Sara. She is sent to live with the Huddlestons on their sheep farm. There, despite herself, Sara learns that there is no escape from love. It has a way of catching you off guard, even when you try to turn your back. When it was published in 1994, Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me won every major children’s book award in Canada. Since then it has appeared in countries around the world. Its story of love and longing strikes a universal chord.
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The Mailbox
by Audrey Shafer
For readers of Unbroken and Flags of Our Fathers, The Mailbox is a sympathetic portrayal of veterans and the burdens they carry throughout their lives. Vernon Culligan had been dead to the town of Draydon, Virginia, so long that when the crusty Vietnam vet finally died, only one person noticed. Twelve-year-old Gabe grew up in the foster care system until a social worker located his Uncle Vernon two years before. When he comes home to discover that his uncle has died of a heart attack, he's terrifed of going back into the system--so he tells no one. The next day, he discovers a strange note in his mailbox: I HAVE A SECRET. DO NOT BE AFRAID. And his uncle's body is gone. Thus begins a unique correspondence destined to save the two people that depended on Vernon for everything. Through flashbacks, we learn about Gabe and Vernon's relationship, and how finding each other saved them both from lives of suffering. But eventually, Vernon's death will be discovered, and how will Gabe and the mystery note writer learn to move forward? The Mailbox is not a story about death--though it begins with a death. It's also not a story about Vietnam vets, although the author works with Vietnam veterans and wrote this novel, in part, to illuminate their sacrifices and suffering. The Mailbox is a story about connections--about how two people in need can save each other. Praise for The Mailbox: Junior Library Guild Selection A Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year A Librarians' Choices Booklist Selection “Shafer’s narrative is heartfelt, earnest and moving. . . and conveys the power of memory to help heal wounds.”—Kirkus Reviews “Warm and moving, it is an evocative picture of the weblike nature of human existence and the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate experiences.”—School Library Journal
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Holding Up the Earth
by Dianne Gray
Fourteen-year-old Hope visits her new foster mother's Nebraska farm and, through old letters, a diary, and stories, gets a vivid picture of the past in the voices of four girls her age who lived there in 1869, 1900, 1936, and 1960.
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The Handle and the Key
by John Neufeld
Dan is a shy foster child who has been moved from home to home, until the Know family adopts him permanently. Like a vivid assortment of snapshots, the short chapters of this engrossing story shift between the perspectives of Dan and his new family as they adjust to their new life.
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Parents Wanted
by George Harrar
When 12-year-old Andy meets Laurie and Jeff at an adoption party, he has already been in eight foster homes. Andy s alcoholic mother has given him up to the state as too hard to handle, and his father is in jail. Andy longs for a loving home and parents he can trust, but his attention deficit disorder, combined with the legacy of his dysfunctional parents, causes him to constantly challenge authority. He steals, destroys property, gets in trouble at school, tries to make a gunpowder bomb, and accuses Jeff, his soon-to-be father, of touching him inappropriately. To make matters worse, Andy s real father shows up asking for money. But Andy s new parents refuse to give up on him, and Andy must fight to save his soon-to-be-father s reputation and his own chance at having a real family."
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Ruby Holler
by Sharon Creech
"You are now entering Ruby Holler, the one and only Ruby Holler! Your lives are never going to be the same—" "Trouble twins" Dallas and Florida are orphans who have given up believing there is such a thing as a loving home. Tiller and Sairy are an eccentric older couple who live in the beautiful, mysterious Ruby Holler, but they’re restless for one more big adventure. When they invite the twins to join them on their journeys, they first must all stay together in the Holler, and the magic of the place takes over. Two pairs of lives grow closer and are changed forever.
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Where I'd Like To Be
by Frances O'Roark Dowell
A ghost saved twelve-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life shuffled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels even less special. She longs for a place to call home. She even has a "book of houses" in which she glues pictures of places she'd like to live. Then one day, a new girl, Murphy, shows up at the Home armed with tales about exotic travels, being able tot fly, and boys who recite poetry to wild horses. When Murphy offers Maddie something she has never had before, Maddie begins to wonder if she has finally found someone who feels like home.
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The Road to Paris
by Nikki Grimes
Inconsolable at being separated from her older brother, eight-year-old Paris is apprehensive about her new foster family but just as she learns to trust them, she faces a life-changing decision.
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Chance and the Butterfly
by Maggie De Vries
Having problems with all school subjects except science, Chance gets excited about going to school when a box of caterpillars and supplies needed to raise them to butterflies arrives in his third-grade classroom.
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Benni & Victoria
by Patricia H. Aust
In residential placement as a result of his mother's substance abuse, ten-year-old Benni travels back in time to befriend a nine-year-old girl during a diphtheria epidemic.
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You're Dead, David Borelli
by Susan M. Brown
David has always known wealth and comfort, but after his mother dies and his father absconds with company funds, David is sent to a foster home, an inner-city school, and a new life. Threatened by bullies and confronted by uncaring teachers, David must find his own way into a life that he can accept.
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When the Road Ends
by Jean Thesman
Sent to spend the summer in the country, three foster children and an older woman recovering from a serious accident are abandoned by their slovenly caretaker and must try to survive on their own.
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Returnable Girl
by Pamela Lowell
Friendship with an outcast classmate and memories of her mother's desertion interfere with the relationship thirteen-year-old Ronnie tries to establish with her new foster mother.
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Onion Tears
by Diana Kidd
Nam-Huong is miserable living in a new country without her beloved family. Then why can't she cry? Vietnamese Nam-Huong wants to adjust to her new life in Australia, but she can't. She misses her parents and her beloved grandfather too much, and she is haunted by her experiences as a refugee. When her clasmates try to make friends she rejects them, so they begin to tease and torment her. Soon, she doesn't talk at all. But with the help of her foster mother and her teacher, Nam-Huong slowly begin to trust and love again
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Team Picture
by Dean Hughes
Trying to hold onto the newfound stability of his life in a foster home, thirteen-year-old David worries about the growing moodiness of his guardian Paul and the fluctuating fortunes of his Pony League baseball team.
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Dancing Through the Snow
by Jean Little
The story of an abandoned dog helping an abandoned girl open her heart.
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The Monster in Me
by Mette Ivie Harrison
The Monster in Me, is the story of a troubled thirteen-year-old girl named Natalie Wills. Natalie's mother has just gone into a drug rehab program, so Natalie is placed in a foster home with the Parker family. Suffering from years of emotional neglect, the teenager has many problems to work through besides missing her mother. Compounding Natalie's problems are nightmares in which she thinks she is a monster. However, with the help of fellow runner Mr. Parker, her school friend Mary, and the track coach Mr. Landers, she begins to learn how to cope and appreciate the stable people in her life.
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Nightwalkers
by Judy K. Morris
After a school trip to the Washington zoo, ten-year-old James becomes so attached to Daisy, an orphaned African elephant, that he jeopardizes his placement in a new foster home to accompany her on several desperate nighttime journeys. James is doing a school report on elephants when Daisy, a pachyderm that has escaped from a zoo, adopts him.
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Heads, I Win
by Patricia Hermes
In this sequel to "Kevin Corbett Eats Flies," Bailey runs for class president hoping that popularity will secure her place in her current foster home.