All the Children Are Home
A Novel
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4.4 • 88 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A sweeping saga in the vein of Ask
Again, Yes following a foster family through almost a decade of dazzling
triumph and wrenching heartbreak—from the author of The Orphans at Race
Point.
Set in the late 1950s through 1960s in a small town in
Massachusetts, All the Children Are Home follows the
Moscatelli family—Dahlia and Louie, foster parents, and their long-term foster
children Jimmy, Zaidie, and Jon—and the irrevocable changes in their lives when
a six-year-old indigenous girl, Agnes, comes to live with them.
When Dahlia decided to become a foster mother, she had a few
caveats: no howling newborns, no delinquents, and above all, no girls. A
harrowing incident years before left her a virtual prisoner in her own home,
forever wary of the heartbreak and limitation of a girl’s life.
Eleven years after they began fostering, Dahlia and Louie consider their family
complete, but when the social worker begs them to take a young girl who has
been horrifically abused and neglected, they can’t say no.
Six-year-old Agnes Juniper arrives with no knowledge of her
Native American heritage or herself beyond a box of trinkets given to her by
her mother and dreamlike memories of her sister. As the years pass and outside forces threaten to tear them apart,
the children, now young adults, must find the courage and resilience
to save themselves and each other. Heartfelt and enthralling, All the Children Are Home is
a moving testament to the enduring power of love in the face of devastating
loss.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Francis (The Orphans at Race Point) traces the heartbreaking pains of a foster family in this beautifully drawn saga. In small-town Massachusetts in 1959, foster parents Louie Moscatelli, a gruff mechanic, and his reclusive wife Dahlia accept emergency placement of six-year-old Agnes Juniper after she was abused in her previous foster home. After a brief stint with the Moscatellis along with their three other foster children, Jimmy and biological siblings Jon and Zaida, Agnes is placed with a more affluent family, the Dohertys, who want to adopt. But after the Dohertys express dismay about Agnes's developmental delays and Indigenous heritage, she runs away to the Moscatellis, where she and the other children grow up enduring the community's scorn as "crummy foster kids." Three years later, Jon and Zaida's biological father reappears and takes Jon back to Colorado, cruelly forcing Zaida to choose between joining them and staying with the Moscatellis. Toward the end of the 1960s, Jimmy returns from serving in Vietnam while Agnes is in high school and still living with the Moscatellis, and a frightening person from Agnes's early childhood reappears, causing a tectonic shift for everybody in the household. The shifting viewpoints and well-rounded characters coalesce to create a tragic and resilient image of an atypical family. This powerful and deeply moving story deserves a wide audience.
Customer Reviews
Loved it
Very sweet book. I fell in love with each character
Absolutely lovely and heartening
This is an incredibly emotional and deeply relatable story that has incredibly dynamic characters who are all so distinctly different yet their bonds and connections to one another are profound and tug at the heartstrings of the reader.
This is an unconventional with an immense love and affection for one another despite the tribulations and tragic losses they face both together as a family and in their individual personal lives as well, the main theme throughout is that their bond and love having been painstakingly fractured both from outside factors as well as from past traumas will be the very brutal adversity this family must experience for most of their lives and their deep and devoted love and respect of one another is the way the continue to pick one another and continue to remain strong and dedicated to remaining an indestructible unit. The trauma we read about is heart wrenching, the lack of agency these kids have of themselves and the foster parents have regarding their foster children when parents and state officials are involved to remove them and place them in some horrific situations will literally make your heart hurt and bloood boil but the hope and unconditional love determination and fight they continue to have for their family and in staying together is a testament to how powerful love is especially theirs and if any family deserves the happiness and respect and right to be together and not have to worry or despair about fearfully being ripped apart it is this one. I fell in love with the family and will carry them with me long after this book is finished and will take away many of their admirable qualities their ability to have faith in times of great turmoil and hope when it seems there is none.
Almost but not quite!
The ending is not very good!