• “Rowe rips the Band-Aid off the ugly wound that is the American foster care system in this searing j’accuse.… A powerful indictment of a child welfare system seemingly designed to ‘pump out’ adults ‘ill-equipped’ to flourish.”

    — Publishers Weekly

  • "Wards of the State...offers moving profiles of former foster youth whose acts have landed them in prison. Ms. Rowe, a journalist, suggests that our child-welfare system is at least in part, even mostly, to blame for their crimes...Ms. Rowe asks a question that many journalists and academics avoid."

    — Wall Street Journal

  • “An immersive, devastating look at foster children’s lives and a systemic pipeline to homelessness and prison.”

    — The Seattle Times

  • "Essential for anyone concerned with child welfare, social justice, and the transformative power of seminal and groundbreaking studies....Expertly well written, impressively organized, emotionally and intellectually engaging, eloquently presented, "Wards of the State" is unreservedly recommended."

    — Midwest Book Review

  • "Rowe maintains that too many of these individuals fly just below our radar—until they explode into our headlines....Based on interviews with subjects ranging from teens to people in their mid-fifties, this is an eloquent and compelling call for change."

    - Booklist