Afraid to Sleep

Afraid to Sleep by Aunjee is an important memoir in the vein of The Boy Called It and Screams from Childhood. As the author shares her heartbreaking story of abandonment through prose and poetry, she sheds light on a foster care system that failed her repeatedly and completely. After the death of her father, Aunjee and her siblings were left to their own devices except for the terror they met at the hands of their mother, an emotionally unavailable woman with an explosive temper. When the courts deemed her unfit, the two sisters and two brothers were scattered between family and foster homes. Aunjee and her sister ended up in horrible place; a place that lacked love, compassion, and seemed to revel in humiliating and punishing Aunjee. Beaten on a daily basis and becoming a parent almost immediately after her fifteenth birthday did not deter her in finding salvation and striving later in life to be the beacon of hope for others as a social worker and champion of foster care reform.