This is one of the most affecting books I've read in the past couple of years. It's written by a journalist who follows the course of a 1973 test case filed by the ACLU challenging the administration of foster care in New York City. Bernstein interweaves the ensuing decades of legal and agency maneuvering with the story of the Wilder for whom the lawsuit was named: a young girl who is not so much failed as she is brutalized by the foster care system. Burnstein does an excellent job of tying her

I'm a child welfare caseworker, so when I picked this book up off of the "Books We Like" shelf at the library and read the title, I thought "The struggle to CHANGE foster care? You mean, it used to be even worse????" Of course, when I actually read the book, I discovered that, wouldn't you know it, the child welfare system hasn't improved much in the past 40 years. This is a really fascinating book that not only explores a landmark lawsuit in the New York City on behalf of foster children but pa...

There are a dozen books I have been meaning to read for decades, and this is one of them. I recently sold my house where I've been living since 1990and in the adrenaline surge that followed the sale I decided it was time to read some of those books that never made it to the top of the pile but also never made it into the trash (not that I still don't wince whenever I toss a book, no matter how bad.)But this made it to the top, at last, and now that I've finished it has made it to the top of anot...

This was one hell of a book to read. It is so well written - seamless transitions between discussion of the progress of the legal cases and the stories of the foster children's daily experience as the cases dragged on. The way the important dates in the case line up with critical changes in the lives of Shirley Wilder, and then Lamont Wilder, is an amazing illustration of how these abstract laws are affecting real humans throughout the long drawn-out court battles over them. At times it was phys...

very very slow read, but very very good. i've read 2 books while reading this one. i love this book and there are moments when i can't put it down but then there are many others moments where i find my mind wandering. it's a documentary almost... and it's loooooong. but i suggest reading it to anyone who has a heart for children, especially children in great need.

This is without a doubt one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. It's about race and poverty and child welfare in NYC but it's much broader than just that. I couldn't put it down.

This book discussed a class action court case in New York. Shirley Wilder, the girl chosen to represent all foster children, entered the foster care system after her mother died and her father remarried. The book tracks Shirley's travels through various foster homes, children's shelters, crackhouses, homelessness, and jail. The court case was attempting to eliminate the severe racism and religious discrimination in the city's system of foster care and adoption. New York City had various types of...

Fascinating, infuriating, depressing, and brutally honest. The litigation is not that well-chronicled, but then the lawyers who were the sources had a lot of mis-, mal-, and non-feasance to cover up. The life stories of the subjects of the litigation ring sadly true and they are far more unsparing of themselves than are the professionals who claimed to want to rescue them and did so little to offer insightful help. And of course foster care, child crisis care in general, is still abysmal in this...

This book was not an easy read for me. Having intersected with the foster care system in a different time and place, I found parts of it quite strange and shocking and other parts quite familiar (and also shocking). Anyway it's a very important book about an under-recorded aspect of our history, namely the treatment of children and poor families who get caught in the child welfare system.

Eye openingThis history shows the interrelationship of poverty, the child welfare system, and systemic racism. So many of the solutions proposed are proposed by people who have no understanding of the real ptoblems. This book can help teach you.

Thoroughly details the policy history of the New York adoption and foster care systems, while providing a case study of a mother and child in the system. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stick it through to the end. Will give it another shot, some day.

A great read and heart rending.

One of the densest books I’ve ever read, but that left room for all the buckets of nuance ! finally finished reading, with chills

This book is an example of what happens when an author is so up her own colon trying to promote a particular view of social justice that the obvious if complicated nature of what she is trying to write get lost under the detail of generational patterns of failure. Coming squarely out of the leftist tradition of the press, this book seeks to serve as a case study approach of an immensely complicated and multi-generational set of court cases known as the Wilder case, which exposed the fault lines

An absolute must read for anyone interested in working with foster care in any capacity. Heart wrenching.

In this book, one dedicated journalist traces the life of Shirley Wilder, the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against New York City's foster-care system that has been going on now for almost 40 years. The story is heartbreaking and well-told, and should serve as a tale of caution for all those who seek to litigate America's problems away.The book shifts back and forth between the hellish demimonde inhabited by Wilder and her son Lamont, and the world of public interest litigation inhabi...

This epic book by journalist Bernstein is basically a case study of the landmark Wilder case that attempted to overhaul the care of foster children in the state of New York. The case, which took over two decades to resolve, sadly didn't achieve the intended effect. However, tracking the case over the years and considering the context of those years provides a very interesting picture of a hugely problematic issue, which is inextricably interwoven with racism and poverty. What made this fairly sc...

This book was very disturbing to read at times. I had a hard time wrapping my head around some of the things that happen in this world, especially to kids. I thought the book was well written but all of the stuff about the legal Wilder case was very dry and there was almost too much legalese to be able to understand it all. I skipped through some of those parts. I was also a little disappointed that there wasn't more written about Shirley Wilder and what she went through her life. There was a br...

Before this book was recommended, I had never really thought about the foster care system much. I had read accounts here and there and knew enough to realize that the system needed a revamp and had much to be desired. In this book, Nina Bernstein wrote an incredibly detailed account of the Wilder case, which set out to revamp the foster care system that for some time had/has serious issues. She interweaves the history of the case with the story of Shirley Wilder, the young girl who the case is n...

The story of a landmark legal case in foster care, "The Lost Children of Wilder" is a grueling read, both in its subject matter and its content. The laborious and involved court case is not exactly explained with the greatest clarity and characters are sometimes indistinctly drawn. But the other side of this book is a stark contrast: Bernstein sensitively and honestly captures the real human figures caught up in the bloody mess of the foster system, never sugarcoating their (sometimes horrifying...

This is not a case study, but rather a mishmash of biography and scathing indictment of a broken child welfare system. It follows the lives of Shirley Wilder, her son, Lamont, and Marcia Lowry, the dogged attorney who spent twenty-six years trying to reform the system through a grinding series of class-action lawsuits, and unflinchingly documents the abuses and gross failures inflicted upon many of the children who fall under its purview.It's not easy reading, but it feels oddly insubstantial gi...

Effective, relentless journalism. Nina Bernstein follows a 35-year struggle to change the New York City foster care system, along with the personal life of the lead plaintiff of a class action lawsuit: an abused 13-year-old girl named Shirley Wilder, and the son that she loses after giving birth while in foster care. At times the legalese and the complex cast of characters in the NYC bureaucracy gets heavy, but when the narrative revisits Shirley and her son, the reader sees the human side of th...

Gripping journalistic account of a 26-year class-action suit over New York's foster care system. The courts finally settled in favor of the plaintiffs, who had charged that the state's reliance on religious organizations (mainly Catholic and Jewish) to administer foster care programs had led to systematic discrimination against African American children (who were mostly Protestant). The case wasn't settled until 1999, five days after the lead plaintiff died alone in a hospice at the age of 39. T...

Finally finished this mammoth! Such a good read for understanding a lot of the broader issues with the Foster Care system but after starting this guy over winter break, I didn't finish until summer! (Largely because I was reading other things but...) Sad story but definitely has some funny parts. Can be dry but it's explaining a legal case that stretched out over two decades (and three generations) and the author definitely works hard to keep it interesting/relatable despite the complex nature o...

This book was so sad that it was a struggle to keep reading. Shirley and Lamont Wilder's suffering reminded me of Saphire's "The Kid", and I wondered if all foster-care stories are similar or if Saphire had read "The Lost children of Wilder". I was surprised to recognize 2 of the NYC agencies mentioned in the book, The Children's Village, where I volunteered, and The Louise Wise Adoption Agency, which did that horrible twin study that separated 13 twins/triplets from each other, and led to "Iden...

Written by a reporter who followed the story for years, this is a powerful account of the New York City foster care system. Although I enjoy reading nonfiction, I usually make my way through it rather slowly; not so with this one. It was hard to put down. Bernstein did an excellent job of weaving together history, law, and personal stories of the children, teenagers, parents, families, lawyers, judges, and social workers whose lives were touched in some way by the Wilder case. A gripping, moving...

Thoroughly researched account of the Wilder cas in New York, which was intended to reform the child welfare and foster care policies in that city. The book traces both the case and its namesake: Shirley Wilder, a victim of foster care abuse who had a son who also fell into the foster care carousel. The author has done a marvelous job of making statistics and anecdotes real by giving intimate portraits of each protagonist and paying close attention to the aftermath of court decisions, placements,...

Incredibly interesting story about foster care in New York City. It was a mix of the personal story of Shirley and Lamont Wilder, two kids in the system over the years, and the long legal struggles spearheaded by Marcia Lowry to try to help kids. The book made you realize just how complicated "fixing" this system is and how heartbreaking it is that it can't be easily fixed for those kids stuck in it.

This book was the utterly depressing story of the legal battles to reform foster care in New York. Bernstein's journalistic style was pretty consistent minus her weak effort to mask her own misguided involvement in the events. She did a fairly good job of maintaining an objective view point. The main lesson I took away from this book is that if you are a religeous charity DON'T take money from the state. It's dancing with the devil and will lead to no good.

I wanted to read about experiences of kids in fostercare. This book follows one girl and her family but there is a lot of the legal side of this case. Although the legal side didn't interest me, I read on to follow the character and hear more of her experiences. I think this book will be a good eye opener so you can get a feel of the plight of these children and how their experiences along with poverty effect them as adults.