Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!

Category: Adoptive Families

  • Adoption Unfiltered: Revelations from Adoptees, Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Allies

    Adoption Unfiltered: Revelations from Adoptees, Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Allies

    by Sara Easterly, Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, and Lori Holden

    Adoption Unfiltered authors Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent) interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies–all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption. While finding common ground in the sometimes-contentious…

    read more…

  • The Killing Closet: A Memoir

    The Killing Closet: A Memoir

    by V. L. Brunskill

    In this heartbreaking story of family, struggle, hope, and forgiveness, V.L. Brunskill tells of her life as she grows up on Long Island, New York. Vicki-lynn and her brother Peter are adopted as infants into a family defined by violence. V.L. defends her mother and…

    read more…

  • A Living Remedy: A Memoir

    A Living Remedy: A Memoir

    by Nicole Chung

    Nicole Chung couldn’t hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she’d long wanted.…

    read more…

  • We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

    We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

    by Roxanna Asgarian

    The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children–and a searing indictment of the American foster care system. On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and multiple children at the…

    read more…

  • Finding Out: Coming to Terms with Adoption

    Finding Out: Coming to Terms with Adoption

    by Paula Wilson

    Thanks to my wonderful parents, there is a story to be told about an airman and his wife. Those people, who took a chance, went through an arduous process never taken before by an American to open their hearts and home to a two-year-old orphan…

    read more…

  • In My Heart: The Adoption Story Project

    In My Heart: The Adoption Story Project

    by Alan Berks and Leah Cooper; illustrated by Becca Hart

    BACKGROUND: In My Heart: The Adoption Story Project began in 2014 in collaboration with 200+ people in the adoption community sharing their true stories with Wonderlust Productions. In 2016, the play, written and directed by Alan Berks and Leah Cooper, was performed to enthusiastic, sold-out audiences at…

    read more…

  • The Little Book of Adoption: A Candid Look at Life through the Eyes of Adoptees

    The Little Book of Adoption: A Candid Look at Life through the Eyes of Adoptees

    by Heather Waters; illustrated by Ellie Turner

    Have you ever wondered what goes on in the adoptees world? Here’s a candid look into the world of the adopted person through the eyes of adoptees. Adoptee Author: Heather Waters Publication Year: 2021 Critical Reviews: Adoptee Reviews:  Other Reviews:  All Bookshop and Amazon links…

    read more…

  • Seoul Story: Adoption Picture Book

    Seoul Story: Adoption Picture Book

    by Susie Lawlor; illustrated by CJ Rooney

    Seoul Story is a bilingual (English and Korean) children’s book, and loosely based autobiographical sketch of the author’s adoption from South Korea to the United States in 1970. The story introduces to children, parents and even teachers about a multicultural, transracial adoption. The book is…

    read more…

  • What Is Adoption?

    What Is Adoption?

    by Jeanette Yoffe; Illustrated by Devika Joglekar

    A book appropriate for all children and families connected by adoption. Beautifully illustrated, this work provides a deeper understanding of how the adoption process works and the feelings that many children have about being adopted. Written in simple terms it aims to inspire an honest…

    read more…

  • What White Parents Should Know about Transracial Adoption: An Adoptee’s Perspective on Its History, Nuances, and Practices

    What White Parents Should Know about Transracial Adoption: An Adoptee’s Perspective on Its History, Nuances, and Practices

    by Melissa Guida-Richards

    If you’re the white parent of a transracially or internationally adopted child, you may have been told that if you try your best and work your hardest, good intentions and a whole lot of love will be enough to give your child the security, attachment,…

    read more…

  • Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude

    Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude

    by Linda Hoye

    Linda Hoye was in her early twenties when she found herself parentless for the second time. Adopted at five months of age, her heritage, medical history, and access to information about who she was or where she came from was sealed. It was as if…

    read more…

  • Searching for Mom: A Memoir

    Searching for Mom: A Memoir

    by Sara Easterly (with Linda Easterly)

    Searching for Mom is a “disarmingly honest” mother-daughter story. Sara Easterly spent a lifetime looking for the perfect mother. As an adoptee she had difficulties attaching to her mother, struggled with her faith, lived the effects of intergenerational wounding, and felt an inherent sense of being…

    read more…

  • Finding Fernanda: Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-Border Search for Truth

    Finding Fernanda: Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-Border Search for Truth

    by Erin Siegal

    The dramatic story of how an American housewife discovered that the Guatemalan child she was about to adopt had been stolen from her birth mother. Over the last decade, nearly 200,000 children have been adopted into the United States, 25,000 of whom came from Guatemala. Finding…

    read more…

  • The Son with Two Moms

    The Son with Two Moms

    by Tony Hynes

    Tony was taken in at the age of three by Mary Hynes and Janet Simons, after being separated from his mother, who suffered from schizophrenia. After that time, he was shuffled in and out of his grandmothers home before being placed in an orphanage, where…

    read more…

  • Who Am I Really: An Adoptee Memoir

    Who Am I Really: An Adoptee Memoir

    by Damon Davis

    “Who Am I Really?” is a question many adoptees ask when they realize they have another family of genetic relation. Damon L. Davis shares his journey through life as an adoptee to becoming an adoptive parent himself. He explores his desire to find his birth…

    read more…

  • Groundbreaking Interventions: Working with Traumatized Children, Teens and Families in Foster Care and Adoption

    Groundbreaking Interventions: Working with Traumatized Children, Teens and Families in Foster Care and Adoption

    by Jeanette Yoffe

    A book of 16 interventions designed to teach new and imaginative ways for working with traumatized children in foster care and adoption and their families. Groundbreaking Interventions provides a wide variety of play-based methodologies that have been successful in working with children over the age…

    read more…

  • Adoption, Identity, and Kinship: The Debate over Sealed Birth Records

    Adoption, Identity, and Kinship: The Debate over Sealed Birth Records

    by Katarina Wegar

    In this thoughtful book, sociologist Katarina Wegar offers a new perspective on adoption and the search debate, placing them within a social context. She argues that Americans who are embroiled in adoption controversies have failed to understand how much the debate, adoption research, and the…

    read more…

  • The Colour of Time: A Longitudinal Exploration of the Impact of Intercountry Adoption in Australia

    The Colour of Time: A Longitudinal Exploration of the Impact of Intercountry Adoption in Australia

    Compiled by Lynelle Long for International Social Service (ISS) Australia

    This sequel to The Colour of Difference examines the path of identity formation, openness within the adoptive family, and the long-term impact on intercountry adoptees. It highlights how open discussion and dialogue within an adoptive family — along with strong encouragement and facilitation to connect with culture…

    read more…

  • Frankie and Friends Talk Adoption

    Frankie and Friends Talk Adoption

    by Pam Kroskie and Marcie Keithley

    Frankie and Friends will help the youngest of adopted children and their parents navigate through the feelings often experienced but difficult to articulate. The narrator is Frankie, a lovable character who warmly validates what an adopted child may be feeling and that they are all okay!…

    read more…

  • Adoption Is a Lifelong Journey

    Adoption Is a Lifelong Journey

    by Kelly DiBenedetto, Katie Gorczyca, and Jennifer Eckert

    Meet Charlie, an adoptee who opens his heart and shares what’s on his mind through various phases as he grows up in his adoptive home. As the narrator of Adoption Is a Lifelong Journey, Charlie invites readers to see the adoption journey from the perspective…

    read more…

  • Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America

    Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America

    by Stacey Patton

    Why do so many African Americans have such a special attachment to whupping children? Studies show that nearly 80 percent of black parents see spanking, popping, pinching, and beating as reasonable, effective ways to teach respect and to protect black children from the streets, incarceration,…

    read more…

  • It’s Not About You: Understanding Adoptee Search, Reunion, and Open Adoption

    It’s Not About You: Understanding Adoptee Search, Reunion, and Open Adoption

    Edited by Brooke Randolph, MA, NCC, LMHC

    The title of this book can be both inflammatory and comforting; different people need to read it different ways. The reality is that the desire for information has nothing to do with parenting or personality, but an innate desire. It’s Not About You is an…

    read more…

  • Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years

    Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years

    by Katie Naftzger

    Describing the essential skills you need to help your adopted teen to confidently face the challenges of growing up, adult adoptee and family therapist Katie Naftzger shares her personal and professional wisdom. She outlines four key goals for adoptive parents: · To move from rescuing…

    read more…

  • GreenBean: True Blue Family

    GreenBean: True Blue Family

    by Elizabeth Blake

    More than anything, GreenBean wants to feel like she belongs in her family. She does not look like them. She does not like the same things as them. So she feels like an outsider. How can she possibly belong? An Early Reader for ages 4-8,…

    read more…

  • Borya and the Burps: An Eastern European Adoption Story

    Borya and the Burps: An Eastern European Adoption Story

    by Joan McNamara, illustrated by Dawn Majewski

    In recent years more children have been adopted from Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Bloc countries than from any other region of the world. Yet until now, there have been no picture books designed to tell their stories of finding a forever family…

    read more…

  • Cooper’s Lesson

    Cooper’s Lesson

    by Sun Yung Shin, illustrated by Kim Cogan

    Cooper caught his reflection in the window. Brown hair, fair skin, and some freckles. Grandmother Park always said, “Such white skin!” and Grandmother Daly always said, “What brown skin!” One cousin always teased him about being “half and half.” Cooper has had about enough of…

    read more…

  • Three More Words

    Three More Words

    by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

    Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent a harrowing nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes. Her memoir, Three Little Words, captivated audiences everywhere and went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Now Ashley reveals the nuances of life after foster care: College and…

    read more…

  • Everything You Ever Wanted: A Memoir

    Everything You Ever Wanted: A Memoir

    by Jillian Lauren

    In her younger years, Jillian Lauren was a college dropout, a drug addict, and an international concubine in the Prince of Brunei’s harem, an experience she immortalized in in her bestselling memoir, Some Girls. In her thirties, Jillian’s most radical act was learning the steadying power of…

    read more…

  • In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption

    In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption

    by Rhonda M. Roorda

    While many proponents of transracial adoption claim that American society is increasingly becoming “color-blind,” a growing body of research reveals that for transracial adoptees of all backgrounds, racial identity does matter. Rhonda M. Roorda elaborates significantly on that finding, specifically studying the effects of the…

    read more…

  • Reunions in Spring: Meditations for a Holiday Table–Adoption Search & Families

    Reunions in Spring: Meditations for a Holiday Table–Adoption Search & Families

    by Suzanne Gilbert

    Reunions in Spring: Meditations for a Holiday Table–Adoption Search & Families is based on civilization’s oldest adoption memoir: the book of Exodus. It enjoys a lively retelling every spring through the literary genre of the “haggadah” used exclusively to retell the stories of Moses, his…

    read more…