{"product_id":"the-lost-children-of-wilder-the-epic-struggle-to-change-foster-care-9780679439790","title":"The Lost Children of Wilder : The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1973 Marcia Lowry  a young civil liberties attorney  filed a controversial class-action suit that would come to be known as Wilder  which challenged New York Citys operation of its foster-care system. Lowrys contention was that the system failed the children it was meant to help because it placed them according to creed and convenience  not according to need. The plaintiff was thirteen-year-old Shirley Wilder  an abused runaway whose childhood had been shaped by the systems inequities. Within a year Shirley would give birth to a son and relinquish him to the same failing system.  Seventeen years later  with Wilder still controversial and still in court  Nina Bernstein tried to find out what had happened to Shirley and her baby. She was told by child-welfare officials that Shirley had disappeared and that her son was one of thousands of anonymous children whose circumstances are concealed by the veil of confidentiality that hides foster care from public scrutiny. But Bernstein persevered.  The Lost Children of Wilder gives us  in galvanizing and compulsively readable detail  the full history of a case that reveals the racial  religious  and political fault lines in our child-welfare system  and lays bare the fundamental contradiction at the heart of our well-intended efforts to sever the destiny of needy children from the fate of their parents. Bernstein takes us behind the scenes of far-reaching legal and legislative battles  at the same time as she traces  in heartbreaking counterpoint  the consequences as they are played out in the life of Shirleys son  Lamont. His terrifying journey through the system has produced a man with deep emotional wounds  a stifled yearning for family  and a son growing up in the systems shadow.  In recounting the failure of the promise of benevolence  The Lost Children of Wilder makes clear how welfare reform can also damage its intended beneficiaries. A landmark achievement of investigative reporting and a tour de force of social observation  this book will haunt every reader who cares about the needs of children.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67598762147893,"sku":"ByrdShop_067943979X","price":21.07,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780679439790.jpg?v=1790932001","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-lost-children-of-wilder-the-epic-struggle-to-change-foster-care-9780679439790","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}