When a child is abandoned by their parents, there are only a few placement options for the child. Typically, a child who is abandoned is either raised by family members,
placed in an institution, or placed in foster care. The book “Romania’s Abandoned Children” by Charles Nelson, Nathan Fox, and Charles Zeanah describes a ground-breaking study conducted on institutionalized children within Romania in order to determine the systematic developmental effects of institutionalization. Throughout the book, the authors describe the reasons that they chose Romanian children as their subjects, the instruments and evaluation tools that they used to determine effects, and the overall implications of the findings of their study. The authors were able to take a very complex study and explain it in a way that was easily understandable for the majority of English readers that are familiar with basic experimental designs. Overall, the authors were able to convey their ideas and findings in a precise and understandable way and the knowledge contained within the book would be bene-ficial for all readers throughout the world who are concerned with the future of abandoned children.