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A Ghost at Heart’s Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption
Edited by Susan Ito and Tina Cervin
Sixty short stories and poems reveal the sometimes heartbreaking, often affirming tales of adoption. Written from the point of view of birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees, this unique anthology spans nations and cultures. Editors: Susan Ito, Tina Cervin Adoptee Authors: Mi Ok Song Bruining, Lisa Buchanan,…
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After Houdini (1)
by Jeremy Holt; illustrated by John Lucas and Adrian Crossa
Harry Houdini, master magician and covert spy for the United States, has been kidnapped. The only man who can save him is his estranged son Josef, who, like his father, knows the power of magic—and how it can be more than just an illusion. Josef…
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Among the Missing
by Dan Chaon
In this haunting, bracing collection, Dan Chaon shares stories of men, women, and children who live far outside the American Dream, while wondering which decision, which path, or which accident brought them to this place. Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling…
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An-Ya and Her Diary
by Diane René Christian
An-Ya and Her Diary chronicles the journey of a fictional eleven-year-old adoptee from China. Written in diary format, young An-Ya reveals her emotional journey as she is catapulted from a Chinese orphanage into a middle class home in America. Author: Diane René Christian Publication Year: 2012 Critical…
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Await Your Reply
by Dan Chaon
The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways–and with unexpected consequences. Longing to get on with his life, Miles Cheshire nevertheless can’t stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. A few days after graduating from high school, Lucy…
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Before Houdini (2)
by Jeremy Holt; illustrated by John Lucas
The exciting second volume of the After Houdini saga explores the origins of the elusive master of magic, the man who would become…Houdini. London, 1888. A shadowy killer stalks the streets of London, his appetite for blood unleashed upon the city’s lower classes. To defeat him, MI6…
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Between, Georgia
by Joshilyn Jackson
A fictional story about a woman caught between two feuding families — her adoptive and birth families — in the small town of Between, Georgia. Author: Joshilyn Jackson Publication Year: 2006 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate…
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Borya and the Burps: An Eastern European Adoption Story
by Joan McNamara, illustrated by Dawn Majewski
In recent years more children have been adopted from Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Bloc countries than from any other region of the world. Yet until now, there have been no picture books designed to tell their stories of finding a forever family…
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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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Desire: A Haunting
by Molly Gaudry
Traumatized by the events of We Take Me Apart, the unlikely heroine of Desire: A Haunting leads a silent life in the cottage that has been in her family since Hester Prynne first bequeathed it to Pearl–whose endearingly cranky spirit remains. So begins this strange friendship between “dog”…
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Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear
by Matthew Salesses
Matt Kim is always tired. He keeps passing out. His cat is dead. His wife and daughter have left him. He’s estranged from his adoptive family. People bump into him on the street as if he isn’t there. He is pretty sure he’s disappearing. His…
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Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller
by Meredith Ireland
There’s no one Kelsie Miller hates more than Eric Mulvaney Ortiz—the homecoming king, captain of the football team, and academic archrival in her hyper-competitive prep school. But after Kelsie’s best friend, Briana, moves across the country and stops speaking to her, she’ll do anything, even…
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Everyone Was Falling
by JS Lee
On the weekend of July Fourth, shots are fired at a twentieth high school reunion in a small US town, killing fifty-six. Three survive. So begins Everyone Was Falling, an empowering novel of friendship and violence on the verge of Trump’s election. Lucy–a queer, Asian…
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Evil Exchange
by Lori Paris and Joe Soll
Imagine you are adopted, and find out that as an infant, you were sold on the black market by a notorious baby seller who falsified your birth certificate. Your world is shattered. Your life has been a lie. The truth seems unattainable unless you can…
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Famous Adopted People
by Alice Stephens
Lisa Pearl is an American teaching English in Japan and the situation there―thanks mostly to her spontaneous, hard-partying ways―has become problematic. Now she’s in Seoul, South Korea, with her childhood best-friend Mindy. The young women share a special bond: they are both Korean-born adoptees into…
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Finding Faith: A Memoirish Novel (The Birth-Fathers’ Club Series)
by Michele Kriegman
Like a twisting double helix of DNA, these two satisfying stories of compelling and complex father-daughter pairs entwine with life-altering surprises. They bring compassion, humor, and understanding to the question of whether it is ever too late for paternal instinct. Each year thousands of men…
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Fitting Ends
by Dan Chaon
Fitting Ends is the first collection of fiction by the acclaimed author of the National Book Award finalist Among the Missing and now appears in this newly revised edition with two never before collected stories. Written before Among the Missing and originally published by Northwestern University…
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For Black Girls Like Me
by Mariama J. Lockington
Makeda June Kirkland is eleven-years-old, adopted, and black. Her parents and big sister are white, and even though she loves her family very much, Makeda often feels left out. When Makeda’s family moves from Maryland to New Mexico, she leaves behind her best friend, Lena―…
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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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Heart and Seoul
by Jen Frederick
As a Korean adoptee, Hara Wilson doesn’t need anyone telling her she looks different from her white parents. She knows. Every time Hara looks in the mirror, she’s reminded that she doesn’t look like anyone else in her family—not her loving mother, Ellen; not her…
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How to Greet the Mother Who Bore You (A Short Story)
by Matthew Salesses
Before Teddy and his parents moved to Korea, the adopted nine-year-old knew almost nothing about his birth mother. But once they arrive in Seoul, the boy begins to scan the face of every passing woman, wondering if she might be the one who gave him…
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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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Ill Will
by Dan Chaon
A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came…
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In a Country of Mothers
by A. M. Homes
No relationship is more charged than that between a psychotherapist and her patient—unless it is the relationship between a mother and her daughter. This disturbing literary thriller explores what happens when the line between those relationships blurs. Jody Goodman enters psychotherapy with questions of career…
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In My Heart: The Adoption Story Project
by Alan Berks and Leah Cooper; illustrated by Becca Hart
BACKGROUND: In My Heart: The Adoption Story Project began in 2014 in collaboration with 200+ people in the adoption community sharing their true stories with Wonderlust Productions. In 2016, the play, written and directed by Alan Berks and Leah Cooper, was performed to enthusiastic, sold-out audiences at…
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Inconvenient Daughter
by Lauren J. Sharkey
Rowan Kelly knows she’s lucky. After all, if she hadn’t been adopted by Marie and Joseph, she could have spent her days in a rice paddy, or a windowless warehouse assembling iPhones–they make iPhones in Korea, right? Either way, slowly dying of boredom on Long…
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Into the Light
by Mark Oshiro
When you’re like me, you have to lie.It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then, Manny lives by self-taught rules that keep him moving—and keep him alive. Now, he’s taking…
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Jules Fae: A Story of Adoption and Reunion
by Terrie Novak
First mother, teenage Claire Jordan, enters college in 1965. Intending to be Nebraska’s Ideal Coed, she discovers she’s pregnant just weeks into her freshman year. Expelled from school and disowned by her family, Claire turns to Child Horizons adoption agency. They’ll help her and the…
Including Nearly 500 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
