Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!

Category: Adoptee Author

  • Puzzles, Pieces and Choices: A memoir of my struggle for understanding and closure

    Puzzles, Pieces and Choices: A memoir of my struggle for understanding and closure

    by R. J. Redmond

    Every family has secrets, but I never dreamed my position within ours was the subject of the biggest secret of all. As with any truth untold, there were clues along the way but none obvious. Honesty was a primary value in our home, so I…

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  • GreenBean: True Blue Family

    GreenBean: True Blue Family

    by Elizabeth Blake

    More than anything, GreenBean wants to feel like she belongs in her family. She does not look like them. She does not like the same things as them. So she feels like an outsider. How can she possibly belong? An Early Reader for ages 4-8,…

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  • Bonded at Birth: An Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots

    Bonded at Birth: An Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots

    by Gloria Oren

    Bonded at Birth: An Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots is a story of loss, survival, determination, and persistence. It covers one state, three countries, and two continents. It covers sixteen years of searching and a little over four decades since her first adoption. After growing…

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  • The Collected Plays of Edward Albee: 1978-2003

    The Collected Plays of Edward Albee: 1978-2003

    by Edward Albee

    Brings readers up to date with one of the most varied and brilliant periods in the career of a true American master playwright, including his most influential and iconoclastic plays to date. Adoptee Author: Edward Albee Publication Year: 2008 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews:  Other Reviews:  All Bookshop…

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  • The Collected Plays of Edward Albee: 1966-1977

    The Collected Plays of Edward Albee: 1966-1977

    by Edward Albee

    Brings readers up to date with one of the most varied and brilliant periods in the career of a true American master playwright, including his most influential and iconoclastic plays to date. Adoptee Author: Edward Albee Publication Year: 2008 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews:  Other Reviews:  All Bookshop…

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  • The Collected Plays of Edward Albee: 1958-1965

    The Collected Plays of Edward Albee: 1958-1965

    by Edward Albee

    Brings readers up to date with one of the most varied and brilliant periods in the career of a true American master playwright, including his most influential and iconoclastic plays to date. Adoptee Author: Edward Albee Publication Year: 2007 (1st edition) Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews:  Other Reviews: …

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  • Hunting Shadows: An Adoptee’s Journey

    Hunting Shadows: An Adoptee’s Journey

    by Dan Sandifer

    “Today class, we are going to talk a little about genetics” With these words, Hunter begins a journey to reveal what it means to be adopted. As he sets out to discover all the branches of his family tree, he finds obstacles at every turn.…

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  • Overwhelmed by God’s Grace: Uncovering the Truth About Adoption

    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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  • Fumbling Toward Divinity: The Adoption Scriptures

    Fumbling Toward Divinity: The Adoption Scriptures

    by Craig Hickman

    Craig Hickman had had enough of the secrets and cover-ups and lies and was determined to solve the mystery of his roots. An estimated 7 million Americans are adopted. Depending on their age, many were adopted under the secrecy and shame of the closed adoption…

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  • Mommy Dearest

    Mommy Dearest

    by Christina Crawford

    Memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of actress Joan Crawford. In the book, Christina Crawford claims that she was a victim of child abuse during her mother’s battle with alcoholism and that her mother was more concerned about being an actress…

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  • Problem Child

    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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  • Letters to My Birthmother: An Adoptee’s Diary of Her Search for Her Identity

    Letters to My Birthmother: An Adoptee’s Diary of Her Search for Her Identity

    by Amy E. Dean

    A memoir in unsent letters written by an adoptee and former foster child. Adoptee Author: Amy E. Dean Publication Year: 1991 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 Adoptee…

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  • Birth Mother Mercy

    Birth Mother Mercy

    by Alex M. Frankel

    Poetry. Adoptee Author: Alex M. Frankel Publication Year: 2013 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 Adoptee Reading running whenever items are purchased via these links, at no additional…

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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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  • Cooper’s Lesson

    Cooper’s Lesson

    by Sun Yung Shin, illustrated by Kim Cogan

    Cooper caught his reflection in the window. Brown hair, fair skin, and some freckles. Grandmother Park always said, “Such white skin!” and Grandmother Daly always said, “What brown skin!” One cousin always teased him about being “half and half.” Cooper has had about enough of…

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  • Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion for Adoptees, Birthparents, and Adoptive Parents

    Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion for Adoptees, Birthparents, and Adoptive Parents

    by Jean A. S. Strauss

    What happens when an adoptee decides to locate a birthparent or a birthparent wants to find a child given up long ago? How does one search for people whose names one does not know? And what happens during a reunion? In 1983, Jean A. S.…

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  • The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Transracial Adoptee

    The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Transracial Adoptee

    by Susan Harris O’Connor

    This book consists of five autobiographical narratives by Susan Harris O’Connor, a social worker and transracial adoptee. These monologues were developed and performed around the United States in academic, clinical and child welfare settings to wide acclaim over the last sixteen years. They will be…

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  • Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs: Unravelling mysterious family connections behind a secret adoption

    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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  • 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 Swan Garden

    The Swan Garden

    by Anne Biggs

    The Swan Garden tells the story of a young woman who survives a brutal assault and rape, gives birth in a mother baby home, and the abuse she receives in the Magdalene Laundry. After finding a way to escape, she attempts to create a life for herself, but never…

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  • You Don’t Look Adopted

    You Don’t Look Adopted

    by Anne Heffron

    Adoption can be wonderful and tricky. There is love of the parents, love of the child, but there can also be problems. The adopted child often wonders Who am I? Who was I? Why was I given up? When you don’t have a sense of…

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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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  • Baby’s On Fire: Stories

    Baby’s On Fire: Stories

    by Liz Prato

    A collection of short stories. Adoptee Author: Liz Prato Publication Year: 2015 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 Adoptee Reading running whenever items are purchased via these links,…

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  • The Truth So Far: A Detective’s Journey To Reunite with Her Birth Family

    The Truth So Far: A Detective’s Journey To Reunite with Her Birth Family

    by Jennifer Dyan Ghoston

    How do you use a document like the amended birth certificate given to an adoptee as a legal representation of the entire truth? In this memoir, Jennifer Dyan Ghoston examines that question based on her role in law enforcement for over two decades. She shares…

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  • Unbearable Splendor

    Unbearable Splendor

    by Sun Yung Shin

    Finalist for the Believer Poetry Award Sun Yung Shin moves ideas—of identity (Korean, American, adoptee, mother, Catholic, Buddhist) and interest (mythology, science fiction, Sophocles)— around like building blocks, forming and reforming new constructions of what it means to be at home. Adoptee Author: Sun Yung Shin…

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  • Ten Ways Not To Commit Suicide: A Memoir

    Ten Ways Not To Commit Suicide: A Memoir

    by Darryl McDaniels with Darrell Dawsey

    As one third of the legendary rap group Run D.M.C., Darryl “DMC” McDaniels—aka Legendary MC, The Devastating Mic Controller, and the King of Rock—had it all: talent, money, fame, prestige. While hitting #1 on the Billboard charts was exhilarating, the group’s success soon became overwhelming.…

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  • Heartlines: The Year I Met My Other Mother

    Heartlines: The Year I Met My Other Mother

    by Susannah McFarlane and Robin Leuba

    In 1965, Robin, unmarried and pregnant, comes to Melbourne to give birth and give her baby up for adoption, then returns to Perth to resume her life having never seen her baby. After 10 days alone, the baby is taken home, named Susannah, and made…

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  • A Girl Named Connie

    A Girl Named Connie

    by Carol Perkins with Connie Wilson

    In 1946, being adopted was a social curse and a lifelong sentence. I was born that year, but not to prosperous business owners, Bill and Cloteel Wilson as I had thought. When I was six weeks old, they brought me to their rural Kentucky town,…

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  • Adoption Deception: A Personal and Professional Journey

    Adoption Deception: A Personal and Professional Journey

    by Penny Mackieson

    Have you ever wondered how it might feel to have been adopted in Australia during the pre-1980s era in which vulnerable young mothers were coerced into relinquishing their babies? How it might feel to have grown up, become a social worker and worked with vulnerable…

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  • Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptionalism

    Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptionalism

    by Kim Park Nelson

    The first Korean adoptees were powerful symbols of American superiority in the Cold War; as Korean adoption continued, adoptees’ visibility as Asians faded as they became a geopolitical success story—all-American children in loving white families. In Invisible Asians, Kim Park Nelson analyzes the processes by…

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