The Throwaway Children

by Lisa Aversa Richette. Lippincott, $6.95. This soft-voiced diatribe is based on the author’s experience as a lawyer working with juvenile court cases in Philadelphia, where conditions are presumably no worse than anywhere else—meaning that the whole system is an outrage against decency. Miss Richette’s point, reiterated and backed with examples, is that the law, under the pretext of helping children abused by cruel or irresponsible adults, treats those children like criminals. Although necessarily dwelling on official stupidity and stinginess, with excursions into unofficial perversion, the book is not all denunciation; it includes a rather encouraging account of volunteer countermeasures developed in Pennsylvania.