Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!

Books About Search and/or Reunion

  • Taken at Birth: Stolen Babies, Hidden Lies, and My Journey to Finding Home

    Taken at Birth: Stolen Babies, Hidden Lies, and My Journey to Finding Home

    by Jane Blasio

    From the 1940s through the 1960s, young pregnant women entered the front door of a clinic in a small North Georgia town. Sometimes their babies exited out the back, sold to northern couples who were desperate to hold a newborn in their arms. But these…

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  • Taking Down the Wall

    Taking Down the Wall

    by Christine Murphy

    To find a solution, a person must first admit there is a problem. Taking Down the Wall is a chronicle of one woman’s journey to the painful and reluctant admission that there is indeed a problem, her refusal to let an old wound heal. The…

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  • Tell No One

    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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  • Thank God I Was Adopted ‘Cause DNA Is No Joke!

    Thank God I Was Adopted ‘Cause DNA Is No Joke!

    by Pekitta Tynes with Janice Young

    Abandoned in a shot house and left without a birth certificate, I was an UNKNOWN. I lived in foster care and later adopted into a wonderful family. After 35-years of searching, I found my biological family through DNA testing. This book is an inspirational journey…

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  • The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment

    The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment

    by Cameron Lee Small

    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…

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  • The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother & Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How “Tuam 800” Became a Global Scandal

    The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother & Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How “Tuam 800” Became a Global Scandal

    by Paul Jude Redmond

    MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in the “Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised…

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  • The Adoption Reunion Handbook

    The Adoption Reunion Handbook

    by Liz Trinder, Julia Feast, and David Howe

    The book describes the experiences that people have had when tracing their birth parents, as well as offering practical advice on how to go about searching and what to expect emotionally. Each section has an advice box which summarizes key points, notes issues to pay…

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  • The Adoption Reunion Survival Guide: Preparing Yourself for the Search, Reunion, and Beyond

    The Adoption Reunion Survival Guide: Preparing Yourself for the Search, Reunion, and Beyond

    by Julie Jarrell Bailey and Lynn N. Giddens, M.A.

    This book is written by two adoption specialists, one of whom is a reunited birthmother, and draws on the real-life experiences of others to help readers prepare for the emotional turbulence of the reunion experience, examine their fantasies and emotions about it, and find a…

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  • The Adoption Triangle (reissue)

    The Adoption Triangle (reissue)

    by Arthur D. Sorosky, M.D., Annette Baran, M.S.W., and Reuben Pannor, M.S.W.

    A classic and the first to deal with how sealed and open records affect adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. Originally published in 1978,” … it is as true and open as the changes advocated … comprehensive, factual, forward looking, totally honest, readable and thoughtful…

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  • The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts

    The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts

    by Catherine E. McKinley

    Catherine McKinley was one of only a few thousand African American and bi-racial children adopted by white couples in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Raised in a small, white New England town, she had a persistent longing for the more diverse community that would…

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  • The Boy from Nowhere

    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 Declassified Adoptee: Essays of an Adoption Activist

    The Declassified Adoptee: Essays of an Adoption Activist

    by Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston; edited by Julie Stromberg

    Throughout this book, readers bear witness to key moments in the unfolding of an adoptee from a quiet, contemplative young woman to an outspoken advocate for the rights of adoptees and their loved ones. By addressing adoption through brief essays, the book provides an avenue through…

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  • The DNA Guide for Adoptees: How to Use Genealogy and Genetics to Uncover Your Roots, Connect with Your Biological Family, and Better Understand Your Medical History

    The DNA Guide for Adoptees: How to Use Genealogy and Genetics to Uncover Your Roots, Connect with Your Biological Family, and Better Understand Your Medical History

    by Brianne Kirkpatrick and Shannon Combs-Bennett

    This book is for you if you have hope that DNA testing might open up the search for information about yourself, your origins, and your future. We’ve worked hard to compile the resources in this book and explain in plain English how DNA and genealogical…

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  • The English American: A Novel

    The English American: A Novel

    by Alison Larkin

    When Pippa Dunn,adopted as an infant and raised terribly British, discovers that her birth parents are from the American South, she finds that “culture clash” has layers of meaning she’d never imagined. Meet The English American, a fabulously funny, deeply poignant debut novel that sprang…

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  • The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy

    The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy

    by Blaine T. Bettinger

    Discover the answers to your family history mysteries using the most-cutting edge tool available to genealogists. This plain-English guide, newly revised and expanded, is a one-stop resource on genetic genealogy for family historians. Inside, you’ll learn what DNA tests are available, with up-to-date pros and…

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  • The Fifth and Final Name: Memoir of an American Churchill

    The Fifth and Final Name: Memoir of an American Churchill

    by Rhonda Noonan

    In a family memoir that reads like a detective novel, Rhonda Noonan recounts her thirty-year quest to find the truth of her own background–and what she uncovered will surprise readers as much as it did her. Rhonda was born and adopted in Oklahoma, a state…

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  • The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream

    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 Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me

    The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me

    by Paul Joseph Fronczak and Alex Tresniowski

    The Foundling tells the incredible and inspiring true story of Paul Fronczak, a man who recently discovered via a DNA test that he was not who he thought he was—and set out to solve two fifty-year-old mysteries at once. Along the way he upturned the genealogy…

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  • The Gathering Place: An Adoptee’s Story

    The Gathering Place: An Adoptee’s Story

    by Emma Stevens

    When Emma learns her birth mother wrote and signed a letter about her to the adoption agency, she knew she had to have that letter if she were to ever discover her birth mother’s true identity. Her birth mother had used a fictitious name at…

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  • The Gift Best Given: A Memoir

    The Gift Best Given: A Memoir

    by Edward Di Gangi

    “Like a jigsaw puzzle, every story is made up of pieces; big ones, smaller ones, pieces not easily found, tiny and hiding, essential to complete the picture.” At almost seventy years old, Edward Di Gangi had never given much thought to the fact he was…

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  • The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption

    The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption

    by Shannon Gibney

    Part memoir, part speculative fiction, this novel explores the often surreal experience of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee. Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with a new book woven from her true story of growing up as the adopted Black daughter of white parents…

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  • The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption

    The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption

    by Elaine Pinkerton

    Anyone who was adopted or who has adopted a child will find The Goodbye Baby a comforting and inspiring read. It takes one on a journey through the thorny issues of adoption, a search for healing, and an inspiring finale. Adoptee Author: Elaine Pinkerton Publication Year: 2012…

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  • The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book

    The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book

    by Megan Culhane Galbraith

    Shortly before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, adoptee Megan Culhane Galbraith was born in a Catholic charity hospital in New York City to a teenaged resident of the Guild of the Infant Saviour, a home for unwed mothers. Decades later, on the eve of becoming a mother…

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  • The Language of Blood

    The Language of Blood

    by Jane Jeong Trenka

    With inventive and radiant prose that includes real and imagined letters, a fairy tale, a one-act play, crossword puzzles, and child-welfare manuals, Trenka recounts a childhood of insecurity, a battle with a stalker that escalates to a plot for her murder, and an extraordinary trip…

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  • The Last Invisible Continent: Essays on Adoption and Identity

    The Last Invisible Continent: Essays on Adoption and Identity

    by Michael Allen Potter

    These twelve essays span nearly twenty years of research and activism that chronicle one man’s search for his family. Together, they explore the concept of personal identity from the perspective of someone who was erased completely by adoption in The State of New York. Adoptee…

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  • The Last Year

    The Last Year

    by Amelia Banis

    Being adopted is one thing. Being adopted and navigating the complexities of having unexpected relationships with both biological parents is something quite different. Having two sets of parents can be an incredible gift, but it can also be unimaginably complicated and challenging. Its often filled…

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  • The Lies That Bind: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Rejection, Redirection, DNA, and Discovery

    The Lies That Bind: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Rejection, Redirection, DNA, and Discovery

    by Laureen Pittman

    Born in a California women’s prison in 1963, Laureen Pittman was relinquished for adoption. As a child, Laureen was conditioned to believe that being adopted didn’t matter. So, it didn’t . . . until it did. Through scraps of information, Laureen stitched together her history –…

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  • The Lonely Child: The Journey of Search to Find My Biological Family

    The Lonely Child: The Journey of Search to Find My Biological Family

    by Susan Moyer

    Growing up, Susan always felt something was missing in her life. Then, at age sixteen, her parents finally told her their Big Secret. Susan was adopted. With no information regarding her birth family, but with hope and determination, Susan ventured into the unknown to put together the pieces…

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