Adoptee Reading: An Adoption Book Catalog

Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!

Adoptee Reading is a catalog of books written by adoptees along with other adoption-related books recommended by adoptees.

If you’re new to this site, begin with the Overview and How To Use This Site.

RECENTLY ADDED

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NEWLY PUBLISHED

Pulled by the Root: An Adoptee’s Healing Journey From Trauma, Shame, and Loss

Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble’s lived experience… Read more
Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood

Adoption has always been viewed as a beloved institution for building families, as well as a mutually agreeable common ground in the abortion debate, but little attention has been paid… Read more

RECENT MEMOIRS

Pulled by the Root: An Adoptee’s Healing Journey From Trauma, Shame, and Loss

Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble’s lived experience… Read more
Who’s Wally?: Adoption, Brian, and Me

Andy Wallis was born as David in 1973; he was surplus to requirements and given up for adoption. Growing up, his adoption was never something he really thought about. It… Read more

RECENT FICTION

Sacrificial Animals: A Novel

Inspired by Kailee Pedersen’s own journey being adopted from Nanning, China in 1996 and growing up alongside her family’s farm in Nebraska, this rich and atmospheric supernatural horror debut explores… Read more
When the Ocean Flies

An email from a stranger tells Alison Earley that her natural father, whom she has known for only six years, has died suddenly. What begins as a short trip back… Read more

RECENT PSYCHOLOGY/SELF-HELP

Restored: Pursuing Wholeness When a Relationship Is Broken

Have your hopes been dashed into pieces when you tried to make a relationship work and the other person didn’t respond as you wished? Have you asked someone to forgive you, but he or she didn’t respond as you desired? Have you prayed for healing… Read more
Questions Adoptees Are Asking

People who have been adopted grow up with many similar questions, thoughts, challenges, and choices, such as, “Does my birth mother ever think about me?” and “What is my real worth? Was I a mistake?” More than 70 adoptees discuss these and other adoption issues… Read more
20 Life-Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make

As an adoptee, do you have mixed feelings about your adoption? If you do, you are not alone – adoptees often experience complex feelings of grief, anger, and questions about their identity. Sherrie Eldridge is an adoptee and adoption expert, and in this book she… Read more

RECENT JOURNALISM & RESEARCH

In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family

“Do you know your real parents?” is a question many adoptees are asked. In In Reunion, Sara Docan-Morgan probes the basic notions of family, adoption, and parenthood by exploring initial meetings and ongoing relationships that transnational Korean adoptees have had with their birth parents and other… Read more
Adoption Unfiltered: Revelations from Adoptees, Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Allies

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
Adoption Fantasies: The Fetishization of Asian Adoptees from Girlhood to Womanhood

In Adoption Fantasies, Kimberly D. McKee explores the ways adopted Asian women and girls are situated at a nexus of objectifications—as adoptees and as Asian American women—and how they negotiate competing expectations based on sensationalist and fictional portrayals of adoption found in US popular culture. McKee… Read more

RECENT ANTHOLOGIES

Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies

This book is a wake-up call to those impacted by adoption and to those who interact with them. According to preliminary results of a groundbreaking study out of Winston-Salem State… Read more
When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology

There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of… Read more

RECENT POETRY

In Praise of Late Wonder

In his most personal collection of poems to date, California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick writes with openness about his adoption from Korea in more than 25 new memoir-like prose poems.… Read more
Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies

This book is a wake-up call to those impacted by adoption and to those who interact with them. According to preliminary results of a groundbreaking study out of Winston-Salem State… Read more

RECENT CHILDREN/TEENS

When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology

There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of… Read more
Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story

Sarah has always struggled to fit in. Born in South Korea and adopted at birth by a white couple, she grows up in a rural community with few Asian neighbors.… Read more

Pulled by the Root: An Adoptee’s Healing Journey From Trauma, Shame, and Loss