Inspirational
Featured Books
Another Place at the Table
This candid memoir shares one woman’s journey as a veteran foster parent, centering on three children whose arrival nearly tears her home apart. With honesty and grit, Harrison reveals the challenges and heartbreak of life on the front lines of social services, where compassion and persistence can mean the difference between violence and redemption. A raw, powerful look at the realities of fostering.
Instant Mom
In Instant Mom, actress Nia Vardalos (best known for My Big Fat Greek Wedding) shares her candid, humorous, and heartfelt journey to motherhood. After years of infertility, multiple failed treatments, and dashed adoption hopes, she and her husband finally welcomed a nearly three-year-old daughter from foster care. With honesty and warmth, Vardalos reflects on the challenges of infertility, the transition to adoption, and the joys and struggles of parenting an older child in this inspiring memoir.
Redefining Normal
This memoir follows two former foster youth who meet in college, fall in love, and build a new life together. Sharing their journey of unlearning harmful patterns and breaking cycles of generational trauma, they reflect on themes like worthiness, mental health, and healing. With honesty and faith, they show how love, resilience, and intentional choices can create a healthier future. A compelling resource for anyone seeking hope, healing, and freedom from toxic relationships, grounded in a strong faith-based message.
More Great Books
To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care
In To the End of June, Cris Beam—foster mother and journalist—spends five years immersed in the world of foster care, tracing the lives of children navigating instability and the search for belonging. Through powerful firsthand stories, she exposes the shuffling between homes, strained ties with birth families, and the challenges of aging out of care. Both deeply humanizing and sharply critical, this unforgettable book honors children’s resilience while challenging us to envision a better, more just foster care system.
Fostering Love: One Foster Parent’s Journey
In Fostering Love, Dr. John DeGarmo shares the emotional journey of his family’s fifteen years as foster parents to more than fifty children. From sleepless nights with drug-exposed infants to the challenges of caring for hurting teens, DeGarmo offers a frank, faith-driven account of the struggles and rewards of opening their home. Rooted in his belief that fostering is a response to God’s call, this heartfelt memoir highlights both the heartbreak and the deep joy of loving children in need. Also by this author, Love and Mayhem: One Big Family’s Uplifting Story of Fostering and Adoption.
Counting Down: A Memoir of Foster Parenting and Beyond
In Counting Down, Deborah Gold recounts fifteen years as a foster parent in a rural mountain community, centering on her family’s bond with Michael, a toddler who entered their care with an uncertain future. Through the voices of social workers, birth parents, and even Michael’s own poetry and essays, Gold offers a rare dual perspective on foster care. Honest yet hopeful, her memoir challenges assumptions and reveals both the heartbreak and resilience found in creating family within a complex system.
Dancing with a Porcupine: Parenting Wounded Children Without Losing Your Self
In Dancing with a Porcupine, Jennie Owens shares her raw and honest journey of adopting three children from foster care. Believing love would be enough, she was unprepared for the daily battles with behaviors rooted in trauma, leaving her exhausted and questioning her ability to keep going. With vulnerability and grace, Owens chronicles both the heartbreak and hope of parenting hurt children, offering encouragement and insight for anyone considering foster care or adoption.
One BIG Family: A Foster Mother’s Journey with 200 Children
In One BIG Family, Claudia Peacock reflects on her difficult childhood with an alcoholic father and an angry mother, and how those struggles shaped her path to fostering more than 200 children. Balancing foster care with raising three biological children and working full time, she shares candid stories of caring for kids in crisis. Part memoir, part advocacy, her book shows that joy and peace are possible despite hardship, while demystifying foster parenting for those considering the journey.
Three Little Words: A Memoir
Three Little Words is Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s powerful memoir of surviving nine years in foster care. Removed from her mother at age four, she spent her childhood moving through fourteen foster homes, including one that was abusive. With honesty and resilience, Ashley shares the trauma of loss, the instability of the system, and her eventual adoption into a forever family. Her story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, highlighting the urgent need for compassion and change within foster care.
The Women Who Raised Me
In The Women Who Raised Me, actress Victoria Rowell shares her extraordinary journey from a childhood in foster care to achieving the American Dream. Best known for Diagnosis Murder and The Young and the Restless, Rowell credits a remarkable group of women—including foster mothers, mentors, and even her birth mother struggling with mental illness—for inspiring and guiding her. Both memoir and tribute, this story highlights how love, support, and resilience can shape a life far beyond biology.
Hope’s Boy: A Memoir
This powerful memoir tells the story of Andrew, removed from his mother’s care at age seven when she was hospitalized for mental illness. After enduring neglect in foster care and time in a notorious child welfare facility, he held fast to his love for his mother and his determination to succeed. Supported by caring teachers, Andrew excelled academically and ultimately built a successful career. Today, he dedicates his life to serving children impacted by poverty and the foster care system.
A Chance in the World
Taken from his home at age three, Steve Klakowicz endured years of abuse, neglect, and instability in foster care. Yet against all odds, he transformed his pain into purpose, building a life of vision and hope. In sharing his story, he offers not only a window into the harsh realities many foster children face, but also a powerful reminder that resilience and potential can shine even in the darkest circumstances. An inspiring read for youth, caregivers, and advocates alike.
A Place Called Home
In this powerful memoir, former foster youth and Amazon executive David Ambroz recounts his childhood of homelessness, his turbulent years in foster care, and the resilience that carried him to success. Both deeply personal and urgent, his story is a call to move beyond empathy toward meaningful action. The book’s afterward outlines concrete steps for readers and policymakers to reform the foster care system and address the child poverty that drives so many families into it.
Beyond Blood: How Being a Foster Brother Shattered My World and Rebuilt It
Beyond Blood: How Being a Foster Brother Shattered My World and Rebuilt It, co-authored by a social worker and her son, offers a rare glimpse into foster care from the perspective of a biological child. Ben candidly shares the joys, challenges, and sacrifices of welcoming foster siblings, as well as the deep love and growth that followed. Honest and heartfelt, this book is an essential read for parents and for tweens and teens preparing to share their home through foster care.
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