So writes Cris Beam in her heart-rending and tentatively hopeful new book, "To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care." In 2011, over 400,000 children were in foster care nationwide (down, promisingly, from 488,285 in 2007), but "the system," as those who find themselves mixed up with the child welfare apparatus usually call it, rarely comes to public attention - except when a dramatic failure hits the headlines, usually the death of a small child from parental abuse. And almost always, the kids get no real explanation." Children explain this to themselves in a myriad of ways: often, because they're children, it's because of something they did.
"Every night in every city, children are buckled into vans or police cars (like criminals), as wards of the state (like criminals) and driven to strangers' houses and told to behave.
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