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A Duck – but Tall in the Water . . .
by Lesley Wells
Lesley was one of six children whose mother gave them all away. Fostered then adopted by people who were simply not fit for purpose she experienced a lot of pain and cruelty in her childhood, but also found a lot of joy in the most…
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Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources for Adoptees, Families, Healthcare Professionals, and Allies
by Beth Syverson and Joseph Nakao; foreword by Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao
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…
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Adoption Memoirs: Inside Stories
by Marianne Novy
Adoption Memoirs tells inside stories of adoption that popular media miss. Marianne Novy shows how adoption memoirs and films recount not only happy moments, but also the lasting pain of relinquishing a child, the racism and trauma that adoptees such as Jackie Kay and Jane Jeong…
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Connecting Threads: Five Siblings Lost and Found
by EM Blake
A graphic memoir about siblings of Indigenous and European-American heritage who are taken from their first family, placed in foster care, and most were adopted-a story of the journey to find each other and their first family. This is the story of the complex needs…
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Crossing the Cherry Blossom Sea: An Adoptee’s Memoir
by M. Rosales
In this compelling memoir, M. Rosales recalls the day she was torn away from South Korea at the age of five alongside her younger sister, to live with an American family. With barely any memories of her former life, Rosales navigates the complexities of loss,…
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Going Unarmed Into the Wail
by Karen Wangare Leonard
Going Unarmed Into the Wail is an intense, intimate chapbook that wrestles with what it is to be a product of the adoption-industrial complex. With rich visuals, the poems in this chapbook create space that leaves room to interrogate relationships with historic and present systemic violence,…
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In Praise of Late Wonder
by Lee Herrick
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. This expansive collection also includes a section of new poems, as well as highlights from…
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In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family
by Sara Docan-Morgan
“Do you know your real parents?” is a question many adoptees are asked. In In Reunion, Sara Docan-Morgan probes the basic notions of family, adoption, and parenthood by exploring initial meetings and ongoing relationships that transnational Korean adoptees have had with their birth parents and other…
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Lucky Bastard
by Anthony Akerman
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 were. His mother wasn’t his mother; his father wasn’t his father; his sister wasn’t his…
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Mirrors Made of Ink
by Shannon Quist
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 space between two lives in pieces that narrate a lonely path of discovery amidst a…
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Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants
by SunAh M. Laybourn
Since the early 1950s, over 125,000 Korean children have been adopted in the United States, primarily by white families. Korean adoptees figure in twenty-five percent of US transnational adoptions and are the largest group of transracial adoptees currently in adulthood. Despite being legally adopted, Korean…
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Practically Still a Virgin: An Adoption Memoir
by Monica Hall
During Alaska’s rough-and-tumble 1970s oil boom, a time when prostitution, violence, and lawlessness reigned, Monica Hall rebels against her strict Catholic parents in a downward spiral of delinquency. Overwhelmed by guilt and shame when the unthinkable happens, Hall is forced to make impossible choices. Will…
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Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood
by Gretchen Sisson
Adoption has always been viewed as a beloved institution for building families, as well as a mutually agreeable common ground in the abortion debate, but little attention has been paid to the lives of mothers who relinquish infants for private adoption. Relinquished reveals adoption to be a…
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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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When the Ocean Flies
by Heather G. Marshall
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 to Scotland for a funeral soon becomes a journey that puts adoption, sexuality, and identity…
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Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
by Rebecca Wellington
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 mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed…
Including More Than 450 Adoptee-Recommended Titles!
