Adoption Books

I found this book so exciting that I had to stay up all night to finish it. Fiction could have not created a more complex set of characters than Debra Holtz's family, both adopted and genetic. The sense of place and time from her childhood Chicago to her adult California is terrific. I was facinated by the tremendous inner resources that Holtz developed to reconcile her personal story. Her writing is wonderful. The book is gripping.

What a great read! Debra Holtz bares her soul in this riveting account of her search for hr biological parents. Although slow to start, once she begins the search in earnest I couldn't put the book down!

The nitty gritty details are fascinating, and the shady Mob-associated parts like her Chicago records being "lost", then discovering that they were in a mysterious warehouse fire, drive the story along.

The personal details are also memorable - Debra Holtz really "tells all" and lets the reader know just how it felt to dig so far under the surface of buried family history. She comes to terms with her past at the end in a truly moving scene. Although a real story, this would make a great movie! I hope someone in Hollywood snaps it up!

This, in my opinion, is the best reference book on the Orphan Train Movement of 1854-1929 that is available. As the granddaughter of a rider and author of 2 books on the subject, I am often asked to speak on the topic locally. I have used this book extensively in my research on this period of history. I am especially pleased that the author puts the events of the orphan train movement in context of what was going on in our country during this time allowing the reader to gain a better understanding of how and why this could have happened and why it came to an end after 75 years. Highly recommended!

From 1853 to about 1929, more than 200,000 children and several thousand adults were sent west on "orphan trains," leaving crowded urban areas on the East Coast behind. Holt's book focuses on the placing out system--from its creation to its demise--instituted by the Children's Aid Society of New York. Estimates of the number of destitute children living in the streets of New York in 1853 ranged from 10,000 to more than 30,000. Charles Loring Brace, who became secretary of The Children's Aid Society believed there was no better place for vagrant or outcast children than "the farmer's home." Placing out removed destitute children from the streets of New York City, placing them with families in the west. The system was intended to provide Christian homes and families for orphaned or abandoned children while fulfilling the demand for workers on farms in America's heartland. The author also discusses other charitable organizations that imitated Children's Aid Society initiatives. She uses oral histories, institutional records, and newspaper accounts to bring the orphan train era to life in this balanced account, highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of the placing out system. Her discussion of social and economic structures of the 19th century help readers view the topic in context. This is a "must read" for anyone conducting further research in the topic, or readers who are simply interested in this lost chapter of American history.

This is the most heart-warming, tender love story of a person's desire to have a child of her own to love and care for.. To go to the other end of the world to find just a certain ,precious baby and to endure all the heartbreaking scenes from the circumstances in which these children live,just tore my heart out.... It is remarkable what love and determination this young woman and her husband had, that would lead them to travel through so many hardships, and fears of the unknown, the very scary unknown of a foreign country, leads me to believe that all is possible with faith and hope and determination to have a child that you will protect and love forever....... It is the most heart-warming story I have ever read and will forever cherish my copy of the Book.....

I thought this book was very true to life and gives alot of
hope and understanding to the mysterious world of adoption. I thought this book gave a new perception of what adoptive parents think and feel for those of us who are adopted . As an adult it took away the fear of adoption and showed us the gift of love. EXCELLENT

If you're considering expanding the use of Linux in your organization, this is a must read. Mr. Teter succinctly and accurately notes the pro's and con's of moving into an open-source Linux environment. Using his book as a roadmap saved our company time, pain, and money.

In his book Paradigm Shift, Mark Teter shows corporate executives and IT Directors how to assess their companies and judge whether or not Linux is right for them. He starts the book off with a general road map of Linux, where it has been and where it is heading. Mark believes that most, if not all companies can take advantage of Linux and the Open Source community to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.

It is clear that Linux has matured and come a long way since its inception. Under the right circumstances, I would have to agree with Mark that a company could simplify their environment and reduce their TCO by switching to Linux. Granted, this switch is not for the faint of heart. If you are coming from a UNIX environment, the switch should be fairly easy. However, if you are attempting to migrate from a Windows environment, it may be a longer road to a full switch. This is where Mark's Seven Keys take hold.

The Seven Keys give you a standard process that will help guide you to a successful migration. These Keys are critical to any IT project but they are especially prudent when making a switch in operating systems. Following these keys from Identifying Business Objectives all the way through to Practicing Process Improvement will ease the transition, but Mark is very honest and speaks truth to potential failures.

I loved this story. It's a character building book. I am reading it to my three daughters. warning! You may need a box of tissue at hand.

Beautiful piece of Christian fiction. Story of a young Waldensian girl who is orphaned and comes to live with her non-Christian uncle and cousins. She proceeds to change the lives of everyone she comes into contact with through her tesitmony and Christlikeness. My 4th grade daughter read and loved it, too. Reading level is appropriate for mid-elementary; story is captivating enough for adults. I cried, but I always cry. Probably would appeal to girls more than boys, but boys need to read this kind of story more.

While the ending was satisfying, after spending so much time with Junee, I wasn't ready for it to end. I want to know more about what happens to her. Junee is a very intriguing and strong protagonist, and in a flashback that lasts for the majority of the novel, we learn the chilling and unforgettable events that led up to the emotional first moments of the book. But, to me at least, there is much more of Junee's story to tell, and I hope some day to be able to read more of her undoubtedly fascinating future.

It should be fairly obvious that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Although I couldn't directly relate to the characters, I found them to be interesting, and in Junee's case in particular, memorable. My only peeve is the use of the flashback to tell the majority of the story. As with all stories told in this manner, I would've preferred that it unfold linearly instead, from beginning to end. But it didn't greatly affect my enjoyment, and I'm glad to have read Princess June.

This may be the first novel of a new author from a small press, but don't let that fool you. For me, it was a true find. I cannot remember when was the last time a novel captivated and touched me quite like this one has. I read it twice back to back and discovered that the story has multiple layers. That was surprising because the author's writing style appears simple and straight-forward on the surface. I would say that the language is compact but it isn't dry by any means. On the contrary, this is a passionate and emotionally charged writing with exquisite passages that may be described as lyrical or poetic. But the author doesn't get bogged down trying to be too precious with words. The language works on your own imagination instead. You "see" images in your mind as you read. It's the kind of writing style that doesn't call attention to itself but to the content and the characters. The storyline flows easily and smoothly at a nice, crisp clip. But the characters are what's central here. There are a wide variety of fascinating characters, both Koreans and Americans, from all walks of life. The author's understanding of psychology is "right on" and she has created all her characters with such care that you feel like they are right there with you on your side. These characters feel so real! And you grasp the sense of a whole character all at once, just from a few bits of descriptions and from the way they talk. It's exciting to be one of the first to discover a new voice that is so uniquely original with heart and vision to give as gifts.

I enjoyed all of the Inspector Morrissey series. Very, very human characters, people you can care about, mysteries you have to see solved.

Written with great imagination, style and humor. And the sharp characters! Lucy, child of the gutter, but sharp as a tack. Rosie the police gofer, using her brains instead of procedures. And the two baddies - like Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa, they can't get anything right. The rape of Kim brings, on the last page, the most satisfactory retribution one would not have thought of. And through it all, there are those snippets of pink. I love it!

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? These labor intensive identity questions take a lifetime to answer. For adopted persons, sharing nature and nurture with two mothers and two fathers, responses are often more complicated. Fiction and drama involving adopted people have provided conscious and unconscious answers, advice and role models to deal with such complex family situations over the centuries.
In Reading Adoption: Family and Difference in Fiction and Drama, Marianne Novy, an adopted person who is a Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, gives astute commentary about adoption literature from Oedipus to the novels of Barbara Kingsolver. As a sensitive memorist, Dr. Novy also reveals how adoption literature has enhanced and sometimes hindered her own search for self-definition. This author's goal is to "more of the next generation of adopttes to feel less alone" and to make adopted parents aware (through literature) of the stuggles necessary to meeting their children's needs.
If you love reading, if you are connected to the world of adoption, if you crave making connections between literature and drama and people's interior lives, this is the book you are looking for. As an English teacher and parent by adoption, I found it spoke directly to both my professional expertise and to my personal experiences. I applaud Marianne Novy for her fair, generous and interesting book, the work of a gifted scholar and mature daughter.

Marianne Novy's "Reading Adoption" is a breath of fresh air in the dismal swamp of sentimentalism and sloppy journalism that characterizes too much of adoption literature, both pro-adoption and pro-adoption reform. Ms. Novy, a professor of English Literature and an adopted person, intersperses her own story with examples of adoption and illegitimacy in literature, from such diverse sources as Shakespeare, Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Barbara Kingsolver, and Edward Albee. Her examples range from Tom Jones to The Diary of Brigid Jones, from Oedipus to Carol Schafer's Sacred Virgin. She discusses both familiar favorites, and those new to some of us that makes us want to look into them, or to look at old favorites with a fresh viewpoint.

Unlike many adopted persons who have written their stories, when Ms. Novy found her birthmother and family, she did not find soul mates or people with whom she had a great deal in common, even though she was welcomed and values the ongoing relationship she has with them. She wrote, " There are two simple views that public discourse about adoption falls into too easily. One is the view that only adoptive relationships matter; the other view is that only birth relationships matter. Some people have articulated a third viewpoint, that both matter but probably in different ways, that it depends on the circumstances, that adoptees have a choice about how to negotiate their identity and their relationships. But this approach still is not as widespread as it should be. I hope that this book, by analyzing places in literature where simplifications are found and places where they are transcended, will show more people how their world looks with a third view."

Marianne Novy admirably succeeds in doing this, and illuminates the tension between families, birth and adoptive, that is always there, and is always much more complex than the all-nature or all-nurture camps try to make it. She makes us all question our dearly held myths and icons. By not accepting without comment either the "forever family" fairytales beloved of many adoptive parents, or the reunion fairytales beloved of many birthmothers and adoption reformers, she makes all of us think, not just feel, and she stretches our imagination to encompass the complexity and diversity of adoptees and adoption as it is lived.

This is a groundbreaking book that should be read and discussed by all who are touched by adoption.

Mary Anne Cohen
Feb.2006

A families voyage into adoption proves to be filled with humor angst and love. The book offers an opportunity to explore adoption issues while telling a lovely story about a family. A treat to read whether you are adopted or not this book is a classic in the adoption field.

Readers (7 to 11 years old) will delight in 9 yr-old adoptee Amanda's experiences, her excitement and jealousy as she (and her 2 adopted brothers) wait for their new sister. She becomes aware of outside reactions to her family having several different ethnic backgrounds. Serious and humorous, this book deserves praise for accuracy in real life.

Riding Out the Storm is a well-written, very readable story that deals with an unlikely subject for teenagers: reincarnation. While the main subject is handled well, the book is more than a story about reincarnation. The narrator is a self-described "plain," adopted 15-year-old living in a "normal" family--or perhaps not so normal, since it is a functional family, with a daughter who respects her parents, and parents who actually listen to their teenager. While dealing with the experience that leads to her hypnosis therapy and the discovery that she had a previous life, Emily goes on with her present life--riding the horse she loves, coping with a classmate who is the school bully, and handling conflicts with her best friend. The friend has a weight problem which she handles in a healthy way. The author knows how to weave a lot of insight into an interesting story. While it is clearly written for teenagers, the book is a good read for any age.

THIS IS AN INTERESTING BOOK-THE AUTHOR TAKES US ON AN EMOTIONAL JOURNEY AND SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION THROUGH EMILY'S EYES. SHE IS A 13 YEAR OLD GIRL WHO ALMOST LOSES HER LIFE TO FIND OUT THAT SHE HAS LIVED OTHER LIVES AS WELL. THE SPIRTUAL CONNECTION WITH EMILY IS REAL. THE TOPIC OF PAST LIVES IS REAL. THROUGH EMILY WE LEARN DREAMS ARE REAL AND HAVE SIGNIFICANCE. AS PARENTS WE SHOULD ENCOURAGE OUR CHILDREN TO TALK TO US AND SHARE THEIR DREAMS KNOWING THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. THIS BOOKS FOR BOYS, GIRLS AND ADULTS TOO.