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Mum’s the Word!
by Lorna Little
What happens when you receive a piece of information that changes your life? Mum’s the Word is not just one way to react, but also a 40,000-word memoir that takes you through how the author handled such news. Suspense builds as a story of family…
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My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past
by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair (translated by Carolin Sommer)
This is the extraordinary and moving memoir of a woman who learns that her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the brutal Nazi commandant depicted in Schindler’s List. When Jennifer Teege, a German-Nigerian woman, happened to pluck a library book from the shelf, she had no idea…
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My Name Is Why
by Lemn Sissay
How does a government steal a child and then imprison him? How does it keep it a secret? This story is how. At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given…
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Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh (Raised Somewhere Else): A ’60s Scoop Adoptee’s Story of Coming Home
by Colleen Cardinal
During the Sixties Scoop, over 20,000 Indigenous children in Canada were removed from their biological families, lands, and culture and trafficked across provinces, borders, and overseas to be raised in non-Indigenous households. Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh delves into the personal and provocative narrative of Colleen Cardinal’s journey growing…
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Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
by Jeanette Winterson
Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of…
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Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
Edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin
Many adoptees are required to become people that they were never meant to be. While transracial adoption tends to be considered benevolent, it often exacts a heavy emotional, cultural, and economic toll on those who directly experience it. Outsiders Within is a landmark publication that carefully…
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Overwhelmed by God’s Grace: Uncovering the Truth About Adoption
by Margaret Etcher Theriault
Margaret always knew she was adopted. She was told she was “chosen” and “special” but she always wondered why her roots needed to be such a big secret. When the truth finally came out, the struggle for acceptance and belonging intensified. But then there came healing…
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Phantom Parents: Memoir of an Adoptee
by David Enker
An unusual adoption, a gruesome family discovery, a lonesome journey through North America, a miraculous death escape at the 7/7 bombings in the London Underground and a life-altering diagnosis are just some of the ingredients in this collection of short stories and illustrations. This book will…
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Probably Ruby
by Lisa Bird-Wilson
This is the story of a woman in search of herself, in every sense. When we first meet Ruby, a Métis woman in her thirties, her life is spinning out of control. She’s angling to sleep with her counselor while also rekindling an old relationship…
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Problem Child
by Caradoc King
Adopted at eighteen months, Caradoc King was brought up in a large and growing family. His adoptive mother, a complex woman, was unable to bond with her newly adopted son and treated him with a harshness bordering on cruelty. At the age of six, he…
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R.A.W.
by Patience Agbabi
First poetry collection by UK poet Patience Agbabi. Portions of the collection are reportedly autobiographical. Adoptee Author: Patience Agbabi Publication Year: 1995 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate links. We earn a small commission to help keep…
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Red Dust Road
by Jackie Kay
From the moment when, as a little girl, she realizes that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents, her Highland mother and Nigerian father, Jackie Kay’s journey in Red…
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Searching for Enda
by Paul G. Denny
Everyone has a story to tell. Some are of heartbreak, some of loss, some of passion. In Searching for Enda, a brave man asking questions about his adoption in Britain leads him to discover buried secrets swept under a conservative carpet of shame. We all…
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Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs: Unravelling mysterious family connections behind a secret adoption
by Jane Eales
A simple need for her birth certificate leads Jane, aged 19, to a devastating secret: she is adopted. Stunned, Jane is sworn to secrecy and forbidden to search for her biological family – a promise she honours until the death of her adoptive parents. A…
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Somebody’s Daughter
by Zara H. Phillips
Zara H. Phillips seemed to live a charmed life — backing singer to the stars with an incredible career here and across the Atlantic — but her smile masked a difficult childhood and the reality that she was adopted as a baby in the ’60s.…
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Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity
by Catana Tully
In this memoir, the author explores questions of race, adoption, and identity, not as the professor of cultural studies she became, but as the Black child of German settlers in Guatemala. Her journey into the mystery that shrouded her early years begins in the US…
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Survival Without Roots: Memoir of an Adopted Englishwoman (Book 1)
by Anna Anderson
The Survival Without Roots memoir trilogy portrays the melting pot of emotions experienced by many adoptees associated with their lack of identity, as they spend a lifetime wondering … “Is there anyone out there who looks like me, talks like me and thinks like me?” As an…
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Surviving Secrets
by Margaret Watson
A true story that reveals the strength and resilience of the human spirit in the face of betrayal, grief and loss. At age forty, Margaret Watson learned she was adopted. This shocking and confronting truth was previously unknown to her and turned her whole world…
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Swear, Vent & Coloring Book For (very) F*cking Angry Adoptees: For Adoptees Healing Journey – Volume 1
by Angel Davis; illustrated by Angie McGahey
Why an angry sweary coloring and journal book? Because punching people in the face is frowned upon, and anger isn’t great for your overall mental and physical health if you hold on to it–so just let it all out! As an adult adoptee that struggles…
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Tell No One
by Brendan Watkins
A stunning memoir of one man’s search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church.Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties, he…
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Telling Tales
by Patience Agbabi
In Telling Tales, award-winning poet Patience Agbabi presents an inspired 21st-century remix of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, retelling all of the stories, from the Miller’s Tale to the Wife of Bath’s, in her own critically acclaimed poetic style. Celebrating Chaucer’s Middle-English masterwork for its performance element…
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The Adoption Papers
by Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay tells the story of a black girl’s adoption by a white Scottish couple- from three different viewpoints: the mother, the birth mother, and the daughter. Adoptee Author: Jackie Kay Publication Year: 1991 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this…
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The Boy from Nowhere
by Gregor Fisher with Melanie Reid
The warm, funny memoir of Gregor Fisher, the much loved Scottish actor best known for Rab C. Nesbitt, told as he uncovers his dramatic family history. Growing up in the Glasgow suburbs, Gregor was 14 when he asked where he was christened and was told…
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The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream
by Katharine Norbury
Katharine Norbury was abandoned as a baby in a Liverpool convent. Raised by loving adoptive parents, she grew into a wanderer, drawn by the landscape of the British countryside. One summer, following the miscarriage of a much-longed-for child, Katharine sets out – accompanied by her…
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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…
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The Mothers
by Rod Jones
In 1917, while the world is at war, Alma and her children are living in a sleep-out at the back of Mrs Lovett’s house in working-class Footscray. When Alma falls pregnant, her daughter Molly is born in secret. As Molly grows up, there is a…
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The Presence of Absence: A Story About Busyness, Brokenness, and Being Beloved
by Linda Hoye
We wear busyness as a badge of accomplishment and personal success. But when we use it to fill a void, being busy can become an addiction. Busyness helps us feel better—or feel nothing—but the benefit doesn’t come without cost. Adoptee Linda Hoye used it to…
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The Wall of Secrets: Memoir of The Almost Daughter
by Claire Hitchon (with Janice Harper)
Do you feel you belong; that you fit-in in this world? Have you experienced abuse, adoption, loss, and grief? The Wall of Secrets was how I survived those feelings of not belonging, not fitting-in; not being wanted or loved. Each drawer holds one of my…
Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
