Fostered: The System's Child

By Shanesha Scott

Fourteen-year-old Jada's world shatters the night CPS tears her family apart, scattering her and her siblings across Chicago with no promise they'll ever see each other again.
Thrown into Aunt Pauline's house, Jada quickly learns the rules: stay quiet, stay useful, stay out of the way. One wrong move means punishment. One wrong word means blame. And every day feels like another reminder that she is unwanted, unseen, and utterly alone.
School offers no relief.
Home offers no safety.
And the mother who should be fighting for her has disappeared into her own life.
Just when Jada begins to believe she's fading for good, two people break through the darkness: Marco, the boy up the street with a steady kindness she doesn't trust yet, and Kashonna, the friend who becomes a lifeline when everything else is falling apart.
But hope is dangerous in a world built to break girls like her.
With her siblings out of reach, her mother gone silent, and a foster home tightening around her like a trap, Jada must decide whether she will disappear the way everyone expects - or fight to stay visible in a world determined to erase her.
Heart-pounding, raw, and unforgettable, this coming-of-age novel follows a girl battling to hold on to herself when everything she loves is out of sight.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GF6V72PB
• ISBN13: 9798242721739
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"