BUCKSPORT — Imagine being a 7-year-old child removed from the only home you've known. Children are never removed from a loving, safe home so it is assumed that the conditions these children were living in were less than stellar.

Now imagine being brought to a foster home and watching a sibling being driven away while you are left behind in a home where you know no one. It happens daily in the foster system in Maine.

Jan Riddle, of Bucksport, came to the foster system to adopt a child. The baby boy came to the Riddle family directly from the hospital. His birth mother already had a child in foster care so her second child immediately entered the foster system. He arrived in the arms of his caseworker, a tiny four-pound bundle, born 10 weeks premature.

His parents’ rights were terminated within six months, and his adoption into the Riddle family was finalized when he was two.

Along the way, Riddle learned a lot about the plight of foster children. Moved both by the statistics and her adoptive son's own story, she knew the story of siblings living in different foster homes was important for foster children, and one she needed to write for them.

"My son has a half-brother he has only met once," said Riddle, in a news release. "Because of circumstances out of my control, my son has not been able to have contact with him since that first meeting."

Through granted funding, Riddle was able to bring her idea to reality by self-publishing her stories. The drawings are done by local illustrator Stephen Costanza (Mozart Finds a Melody).

The book is a flip book, two stories in one. Shane’s Best Week Ever! and Just Because follow the journal entries of a brother and sister separated to live in different foster homes and the personal effect it has on both of them.

The stories explain how they were separated and how they are, at first, allowed to speak to each other on the phone. Each story ends with the children reuniting in the centerfold.

Riddle, the recipient of a Giraffe Award, a Governor's Service Award, Maine Foster Parent of the Year and Public Citizen of the Year Awards, was awarded the Congressional Angel in Adoption Award in Washington DC in 2002. for her work on behalf of Maine's foster children.

Riddle is donating 1,000 of her books to Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine to include in their Christmas packages.

Presents will be given to foster children at Christmas parties all over the state, one of them in Rockland later this month. Another 1,000 books will be donated to be included in packets for people participating in Foster Parent training.

To view a slideshow of the book on YouTube visit this link. youtu.be/W1w8TyTY0pM.

For more information on becoming a foster parent, or to adopt from the foster system in Maine, visit www.affm.net, or contact Bette Hoxie, Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine at 207-827-2331.