Claudia Rowe, using magnificent prose, captures the difficulties and nuances of being a child navigating life alone. I found myself absolutely devouring this book. Using anecdotal stories to help make the message clear while still using data to help back up her claims, this is an excellently researched book with incredible insight into the difficulties of our social welfare system. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has experience with the foster system or is interested in the complicated web that it weaves around vulnerable children. Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to review this book!

4 stars-When you think of foster kids a lot of what comes to mind is the little who get placed and then adopted to go to live happy full lives. What you don’t think of is that the majority of teenagers who are placed into foster care will end up in multiple homes, group homes, and potentially prison. The author provided a very thoroughly researched look at the foster to prison pipeline. Through the stories of eight kids, there are successes, but there are also failures in the system. My heart aches thinking about how some kids get placed in foster care and are “returned” to the system. This was an eye opening read, especially being a teacher who has taught kids from foster families. There is a lot of work to be done with the foster care system and this book will hopefully bring some light to that topic. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Told through eight different case studies with a rich history about the foster care and adoption system in the US, Rowe spells out one of the central arguments in her book she heard in a court case: if the children are the responsibility of the state while in the foster care and adoption system, is the state also responsible for crimes and other transgressions committed by those in foster care and adoption homes? What follows is an extremely compelling argument using first and secondhand accounts of individuals in varying stages of the foster care, adoption, criminal justice, and post-criminal justice systems.

Early on in the book, you see Rowe set up one of the overarching themes of the book: the relatively recent concept of the foster care-to-prison pipeline. Going into this book, I was aware of the abuse, underfunded, understaffed, and overworked caseload of social workers and the disregard for foster care kids, but this book opened my eyes up to much more and made me view it a different way. One of my favorite arguments she made in her book was about how the state spends money on “wards” (foster care children) to be raised by random people rather than using that money toward helping the family achieve upward mobility. Children are removed from their homes by the stage where, in a scarily large number of instances, are introduced to many foster and adoption homes, as foster parents “return” the child they adopted or fostered.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, please note that this ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"Wards of the State" is an insightful review of the flaws of foster care, especially those inherent to the institution even when implemented correctly. It frames these through the experiences of former foster children now feeling those repercussions as adults, including several who have become activists for change. I appreciated the nuanced insight into the reforms to both foster care and the juvenile criminal justice system and the understanding that, while some changes are common sense, such a complicated situation cannot be easily resolved.
The book was let down in places by narrative passages from the point of view of the foster children, as it's unclear whether these are direct accounts by the featured individuals or if the author has fictionalized their experiences. If you skim these sections, particularly the beginning of the first chapter, the reporting in the rest of the book is worthwhile.
Content warning: due to the nature of the subject, this book tackles many intense topics such as child abuse frequently and in-depth.
Thank you to Abrams Press for providing a free Advanced Reader Copy of this book via NetGalley in return for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I've read quite a few books on foster care and how it fails the kids. But this book digs deep and really shows the link between foster kids and prison. The various former foster kids that were focused on had difficult stories but so many of them took their past and are trying to make positive changes.

Have you wondered why the existing U.S. foster care system is so broken? This book answers that, and more. Why is there a foster care to prison pipeline? Why do so many foster kids end up homeless as adults? What can we do to make positive change in the lives of these children who deserve so much more? Read this thoroughly researched book to find out!

Claudia Rowe weaved a story of societal inadequacies worthy of a Jonathan Kozol story. Instead of a book filled with statistics and third person opinions, she introduced the reader to real people. Real children who do what they need to do in order to survive. Is it always right? Of course not. But would I do the same? Maybe…I am grateful I will never have to find out.
I am left wondering about Maryanne….

I'm fascinated with books like this and appreciate the author's authentic approach to uncovering more about the children and the fostering system. Well done. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.