Adoptee Reading is a catalog of adoption books of interest to adopted people.
First and foremost, we feature books written by adoptees themselves. Many of these are about adoption, but adoptees are also writing great books that have nothing obviously to do with adoption in any way. We list these titles as well, because we believe adoptees have a unique perspective on life in general.
We also link to reviews written by adult adoptees for every title for which we can find them. We do this because we believe adoptees are the best authority on the relevance of any book for adoptees.
Finally, we list books with adoption themes that are recommended by adult adoptees but authored by folks who are not adopted. The key phrase in that last sentence is “recommended by adult adoptees.” There are great numbers of adoption books out there–and other places to find them. Here we are concerned with providing a resource to adoptees, to help them locate the titles that would be most interesting to them. If no adoptee recommends a particular book, it will not be found here. A positive published review written by an adult adoptee is considered a recommendation. We also accept direct recommendations from adult adoptees.
*** A note about children’s books: We have received inquiries from several people wanting to know if children’s books can be listed here. There are some adoption books that have been authored by young adoptees in conjunction with their parents. There are many more adoption books for children that have been authored entirely by people who are not adopted. In the interest of maintaining this site as an adoptee-centric resource, we have decided to only accept recommendations of children’s books from adult adoptees, to ensure that any adoption-themed book listed here that is written for a young adoptee has been vetted by an adult adopted person.