The Home: One Year in a Children's Institution (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781643882529)

What is family and what is a home? The answers are as varied as the characters of The Home. In the mid 1950s, teenage culture emerges, rock 'n roll arrives, and Walt, a naive, introverted thirteen-year old, enters an institution for children of working mothers and foster home transfers. The dormitory environment accelerates the adolescent development of the residents and exaggerates their social interactions as group loyalty challenges individual integrity. Walt adapts and survives in a semi-isolated world of triumphs and tragedies, including communal retaliation, sexual awakening, junior high exploits, and a growing awareness of a nostalgic-laden future.