Presents a collection of speeches, court cases, personal reflections, newspaper accounts, and essays that cover the history of the child welfare movement which today includes legal protection of children from physical and sexual abuse.

"When Dahlia decided to become a foster mother, she had a few caveats: no howling newborns, no delinquents, and above all, no girls. A harrowing incident years before left her a virtual prisoner in her own home, forever wary of the heartbreak and limitation of a girl's life. Eleven years after they began fostering, Dahlia and Louie consider their family complete, but when the social worker begs them to take a young girl who has been horrifically abused...

"An instant classic, for fans of Huckleberry Finn, Peace Like a River, and Jim the Boy: when two hardscrabble young boys think they've committed a crime, they flee into the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Will the adults trying to find and protect them reach them before it's too late?"-- Summer, 1994, Claypot, Wisconsin. Tired of seeing his best friend, Dale "Bread" Breadwin, bruised and terrorized by his no-good dad, ten-year-old Fischer "Fish" Branson...