Child Soldiers: ISBN 978-1-60152-974-9 / eBook: 978-1-60152-975-6
Foster Youth: ISBN 978-1-60152-976-3 / eBook: 978-1-60152-977-0
Homeless Youth: ISBN 978-1-60152-978-7 / eBook: 978-1-60152-979-4
Incarcerated Youth: ISBN 978-1-60152-982-4 / eBook: 978-1-60152-983-1
Undocumented Immigrant Youth: ISBN 978-1-60152-980-0 / eBook: 978-1-60152-981-7
School Library Connection, January 1, 2017
The purpose of this series is to increase awareness of children and teens living on the fringes of society. Each volume provides ample background and context, featuring personal accounts, examples, and judiciously chosen quotes that make the content accessible and relevant. Some of the testimony is detailed and difficult to read. Interviews with undocumented immigrants, foster children, and homeless youth describe efforts to blend in and stay below the radar, hampering efforts to identify them and provide needed support. The selection on child soldiers includes multiple references to traumatizing forms of abuse (physical, mental, sexual, and emotional). Each book ends with a chapter on initiatives to help these marginalized populations, including successful programs with positive outcomes, plus lists of social agencies and aid organizations. Each slim volume packs a punch, and the concentration on young populations fills a research need.
Kathleen McBroom, Retired Librarian and Educator, Dearborn (Michigan) Public Schools
Recommended
Incarcerated Youth: ISBN 978-1-60152-982-4 / eBook: 978-1-60152-983-1
Booklist, October 1, 2016
It's estimated that 54,000 young people are held within the U.S. criminal justice system on any givenday—about 6,000 in adult jails. Most have not committed violent crimes. Many suffer from troubled home lives, including poverty, abuse, and neglect. This informative resource covers the path of young people from school to prison; the freedoms that they lose in prison; the amount of time they are kept in solitary confinement; how they find allies to protect them from sexual and physical harm; and the difficulties many face in receiving proper treatment for mental or substance abuse, as well as the often inadequate educational services available. Along with sobering statistics, it presents powerful and heartbreaking stories of young inmates and highlights some model programs that focus on rehabilitation, rather than incarceration. Stock color photos, source notes, an organization list, further resources, an index, and sidebars that highlight notable quotes and anecdotes from the text are included. This title in the Forgotten Youth series will be useful for student research.
—Sharon Rawlins