Another Place at the Table

' ... everyone should read this book and experience the reality of how some of our children are raised. Our children are our future - give them one, as this author has.' - Leonie Parmenter, Australian Mother of the Year, foster parent to more than five hundred children

'Kathy Harrison has written a riveting portrait of life in her extraordinary American family, set against the backdrop of a child welfare system that is completely overwhelmed. At a time when we're looking for heroes who aren't on the silver screen or in slick magazines, Another Place at the Table offers the real thing.' - Dave Pelzer, author of A Child Called It

'Shocking, brutal, heartbreaking, and ultimately redemptive. This is the riveting and profoundly moving story of a hero, disguised as an ordinary woman. And, as with every hero, it's the children she is out to save.' - Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors



When children come to Kathy Harrison their sense of self is often shattered; they are refugees from a war they can't begin to comprehend. As a foster parent Kathy's job is to paste their lives together until they can make some sense of it all, and to offer a small island of safety in an unsafe and terrifying world.

Over the last decade Kathy has fostered almost one hundred children. She is no saint, nor does she claim to be. Rather she is an ordinary woman doing heroic work. Another Place at the Table is the riveting story of one family's journey through the maze of a social services system, of the children who unwittingly led the way, and of a woman whose compassionate intentions are often all that stands between abuse and redemption.