Foster

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses death of a child, alcoholism, implied parental abuse and neglect, and separation of a foster child from their preferred family.

The unnamed narrator, a young girl whose age is never stated, is the protagonist of Foster. She is one of many siblings, seemingly one of the older ones given her shy sisters and the multiple babies in her parents’ house. Her character arc is the most prominent in the novella, as she comes of age intellectually and emotionally over the course of her summer fosterage with the Kinsellas.

The girl’s narration reveals her to be an observant child, plainly describing the natural world and adult behavior; there are only a few instances of figurative language when Keegan relates the girl’s perspective. Keegan uses her tendency toward factual description and frequent instances of enumeration to emphasize the youthful quality of the narrator:

The windows in this room are open and through these I see a stretch of lawn, a vegetable garden, edible things growing in rows, spiky red dahlias, a crow with something in his beak which he slowly breaks in two and eats, one half and then the other (19-20).