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Riot Recommendation

15 of Your Favorite Stories of Foster Kids

Vanessa Diaz

Managing Editor

Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.

This Riot Recommendation asking for your favorite stories of foster kids is sponsored by All the Impossible Things by Lindsay Lackey, and Macmillan Children’s.

A bit of magic, a sprinkling of adventure, and a whole lot of heart collide in this extraordinary story of a girl navigating the foster care system in search of where she belongs. Red has power over the wind. Whenever she gets upset the wind picks up, and moving from family to family keeps her skies stormy. Red’s newest family, the Grooves, fit like a puzzle piece into her heart. Just as she’s getting settled, a fresh storm rolls in: her mother. Now Red must overcome her own tornadoes and find the family she needs.

With love, anything is possible.


Families come in all shapes, types, and sizes: biological, adoptive, foster, and combinations thereof! We want to celebrate many flavors of family, so we asked for your favorite stories of foster kids. Here are 15 of your favorites!

The Echo Park Castaways by MG Hennessey

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Bedknobs and Broomsticks by Mary Norton

A List of Cages by Robin Roe

My Name is Leon by Kit de Wal

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos

Kinda Like Brothers by Coe Booth

Peas and Carrots by Tanita S. Davis

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

Wild About You by Judy Sierra

Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson