Like other children in the 1950s, Richard McKenzie remembers pillow fights and pea shootouts; Tarzanlike swings across wooded ravines and carefully camouflaged forts; and later, slicked-back hair and an Elvis-inspired cool calculated to impress the girls.

But for McKenzie, the son of alcoholic and abusive parents, these happy memories came after years of violence and fear. Placed at the age of ten in a home for children in North Carolina, he was given a chance to make a new beginning. This poignant memoir, written with heartfelt immediacy, tells the story of his life there more than four decades ago.

Neither the idealistic world of "Boys Town" nor a cold and loveless Dickensian institution, The Home, as everyone called it, provided its charges with the stability they needed to build character and self-respect. "We had the knowledge," McKenzie writes, "that The Home would always be there, no mean advantage for children whose families had failed them.".

Nestled on 1,500 acres of pastures and forests, The Home provided plenty of space to grow and dream. Young McKenzie and his buddies - some orphans but most, like McKenzie, victims of poverty and abandonment - worked hard and played hard. And while at times they longed for a mother's kiss or a father's embrace, they recognized that The Home provided them with a shelter that their own families could not.

Today, our foster care system is strained far beyond capacity; countless children languish in broken families with insufficient means. Shining a refreshingly clear light on the ongoing debate about the proper fate of these children, Richard McKenzie's story vividly reminds us that institutional care can be the best choice for children trapped in the worst circumstances.