RECENTLY ADDED
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Sacrificial Animals: A Novel
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The Price of Children: Stolen Lives in a Land Without Choice
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Pulled by the Root: An Adoptee’s Healing Journey From Trauma, Shame, and Loss
Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
Welcome!
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.
Visit the Adoptee Reading store on Bookshop.org!
Your purchase helps support Adoptee Reading as well as independent bookstores
NEWLY PUBLISHED
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Lucky Bastard
When he was ten years old, the author was told he’d been adopted. It was a seismic event that turned his world upside down. Nobody was who he thought they… Read more
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Mirrors Made of Ink
A collection of sixty poems spanning moments across a lifetime, Mirrors Made of Ink focuses on the emotional catastrophe of adoption. Quist muses with varied style on family, existence, and the liminal… Read more
RECENT MEMOIRS
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Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly… Read more
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Crazy Bastard: A Memoir of Forced Adoption
Derek Pedley abandons his thirty-year journalism career on the brink of a breakdown, haunted by addiction, compulsion, and obsession, and carrying the heavy baggage of a boy who found his… Read more
RECENT FICTION
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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
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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
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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 as an adopted person. The story is led by Heidi as she pieces together her… Read more
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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 University (final report targeted for release in 2025), adopted people are 36.7 times more likely… Read more
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The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment
Adoption is often framed by happy narratives, but the reality is that many adoptees struggle with unaddressed trauma and issues of identity and belonging. Adoptees often spend the majority of their youth without the language to explore the grief related to adoption or the permission… Read more
RECENT JOURNALISM & RESEARCH
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Adoption’s Hidden History: Steps to Sealing the Records (Vol. 2)
An estimated six million Americans are adopted. The development of laws and regulations facilitating this process has been shrouded in mystery. “Adoption’s Hidden History” is for anyone who has ever been touched by adoption. From Myra Clark Gaines’ nineteenth century court fight for recognition as… Read more
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Adoption’s Hidden History: From Native American Tribes to Locked Lives (Vol. 1)
Adoptions are finalized daily across America. Like the root system of a giant oak, tentacles of its history are submerged in years of human experience. Native Americans adopted children and adults into their tribes before pilgrims settled in the New World. Early-day adoption advocates took… Read more
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Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo?
This book presents a committed quest to unravel and document the postwar adoption networks that placed more than 3,000 Greek children in the United States, in a movement accelerated by the aftermath of the Greek Civil War and by the new conditions of the global… Read more
RECENT ANTHOLOGIES
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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