This summer, as we prepare for Year 2 of our project, we are scouring the web and bugging our friends and everyone we meet to share interesting resources with us that represent the lives of foster youth in different ways.

The new ABC Family tv show The Fosters debuted this summer and attempts to raise important questions about institutional, social, and cultural context of the lives of youth who are tethered to the foster care system.

And we’ve just learned about a fascinating sounding novel called The Panopticon, a novel by Jenni Fagan that focuses on the life of Anais, a young woman who has grown up in foster care and finds herself being sent to “the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders.” More on this after we’ve read it through.

Here are a few others that we’ve read and loved and discussed during Year 1 of the project — not all are exactly about the foster care system, but all do take up questions and themes of home, belonging, family, kinship, and love:

Becoming Naomi Leon

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Geek Girl

Do you have a resource to share that depicts the lives of youth in foster care? We’ve been collecting titles all summer and will soon post a list of both fiction and documentary resources — but we’re always looking for more, so please share your titles with us!