Gerstenzang was a social worker and an experienced parent; she had the love and support of her family, and a firm conviction that a child needed her. However, very soon into her experience as a foster mother she became convinced that the bureaucracy of foster care provided as little as possible for her foster child and was designed merely to made Gerstenzang and her family jump through hoops for no reason. In this honest and often heartrending narrative she gives new or prospective foster parents advice on coping with the system and its inadequacies, living as a multiracial family, dealing with emergencies, learning new cultures, and advocating constructively without risking the health and well-being of what should have been the center of the equation, the child. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)