By Scott Simon, NPR News—Vanessa Diffenbaugh fostered and mentored children in child welfare, and now she has written a novel about the complexities of emotions and experiences within foster care. The protagonist, Victoria, has been moved from placement to placement and struggles to find people who truly care and make connections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Photo Courtesy: Random House

 "I've worked with foster kids a long time, and I think that this is something that foster kids — and really all of us — struggle with to some extent," she says. "If you've been hurt, as Victoria has many, many times, it's hard to learn how to trust again."

She pushes people away who try to reach out to her, but she finally finds an outlet in flowers. More than anything, Diffenbaugh explains, flowers represent something Victoria is good at. The author explains that the outlet does not have to be flowers for every foster kid.

"There aren't always, especially in low-income communities, the arts and the dance and the drama and the things that can really show a kid, look, even if I'm three years behind in math, there's something I'm good at that can help me be successful in life," she says. "And I think for Victoria that's what the flowers give her is a sense of success."

The novel is loosely based on experiences Diffenbaugh had mentoring a young woman who was in foster care. The author felt that she had reached out to the youth but was never able to reach her.

"She had a very serious attachment disorder. She'd been born into the foster care system, she had a number on her birth certificate, and she didn't even know who named her," Diffenbaugh says. "There were brief moments when I felt that I knew her, and I loved her, and I knew that she was capable of loving me back, but I could never quite get through to her."

Diffenbaugh says she sought to write a book about foster care and the difficulties in finding a place of one’s own when forced to move from place to place. She hopes that foster youth can find their own outlet to express themselves like Victoria does through flowers.

Courtesy of NPR News

Original Article: Speaking Of Foster Care In 'The Language Of Flowers'

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/27/139985995/speaking-of-foster-care-in-the-language-of-flowers

http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/features/vanessa_diffenbaugh/