Adoption Books

What is the way to keep a good relationship with a childhood friend? It is sometimes difficult and complicated because of changing of environment or us. Jacqueline Woodson, the author who awarded the Coretta Scott King, describes the importance of friends, family and the growth of teenagers.
Whwn Margaret's best friend Maizon returns from boarding school and joins her eighth grade, they try to resume their friendship.However Maizon has been spent more time with a new friend Caroline and Margaret has a kind of jealousy. What's worst, she faces some personal problems. Though it is normal thing, she cares her weight seriously and her father suddenly appears since he left in her infancy.
Woodson always shows the realistic and candid assessment of relationship between white and black and what problems teens have in this book. What's more, she finally tells us the importans of friends. I really like this happy ending of this storly!! This book is written in simple, but many adjective which describe feelings and scene are used.
If I could modify this story, I would like to make brighter this story. Because this is a kind of serious story which characters always have nagative and complicated problem.
By the way, I recommend this book for school chidren and teens and would like them to consider the importance of friends.

This book was one I purchased for my book-loving niece and read to be sure it was age appropriate. Let me just say it is and she loved it - while I absolutely adored it. In the third book of a wonderfully written trilogy, Jacqueline Woodson revisits the friendship of Maizon and Margaret. Here we see the girls developing into teenagers and exploring the new boundaries of their friendship after major changes in the family of Margaret and Maizon's less than triumphant return from a sojourn in a private, predominantly white boarding school. The arrival of a new girl on their block also inserts challenges in their evolving friendship.

Ms. Woodson has done it again. I was a little sad that this was my final journey with Maizon and Margaret. What a wonderful cast of characters and dialogue Ms. Woodson crafted.

I'd highly recommend all of the books in the trilogy.

I really liked this book. This being the first of Neve Coyle's books I've read, I didn't know what to expect. It had enough suspense to keep me turning the page, but still a good love story. I didn't see the need to keep Jeff going to L.A. and I don't understand how Cari never met him during the summers she visited. Other than that, I can't wait to read the next in the series.

It may be hard to find, but it's worth your time. This series by Neva Coyle is interesting. It maybe a little extreme at times, but good Christian romance and suspense as well.

I prefer Winkler's other book: Relinquishing Mothers in Adoption

Winkler was one of the first persons in the helping professions to acknowledge the true psychological effects on the birthmother. Prior to this, most practitioners simply ignored the birthmother. I prefer Winkler's other book: Relinquishing Mothers in Adoption.

I saw Kelly on Dr Phil. He interviewed about four women (not Kelly) who had been involved in adoption fraud and promoted Kelly's book. It was an extremely sad and involved programme. The fraud is complex and desperate women were losing thousands of dollars and gaining a huge amount of pain.

This book describes the American process of adoption. Other countries probably don't have the same inter state problems, although fraud could still happen.

Pages 3-94 contain the author's battle with birth mothers that weren't pregnant who were fraudulently gaining a lot of money and causing a lot of pain.

Pages 95-143 are Appendices about adoption. Helpful information if you have been involved in fraud or want to adopt in America.

Also shows how legal adoption through official services can be very slow and unsuccessful. If you come across an easier way to adopt it probably contains fraud.

More useful as a reference book rather than a biography.

You think you know something about adoption? This book will open your eyes to just how vulnerable a caring loving family was to cold cruel criminals that preyed on them as they sought to complete their family circle through adoption facilitators. The calculated lies and deception this average American family were dealt and the strength and faith that carried them through their ordeal makes a story that reads like no other story you've ever read about adoption. Why they chose adoption facilitation over the internet and what they now know as the warning signs is a part of the story. Told by a mother who's heart and spirit was near breaking through this virtual and in reality journey, she could easily be your neighbor next door or just down the street. Justice of a kind does prevail and healing, hope and love ultimately overcome the nightmare of the cruelest con. Much more than just a good read.

Toby Volkman, editor of this volume and an anthropologist, describes the uncharted territory and cultures that transnational adoption is fast creating as the "new geographies of kinship." Indeed, the contributors to this thoughtful volume examine with courage and carefully grounded research, difficult subjects, such as the motivations of birth mothers in relinquishing their children to international adoption, or the struggles of adoptive parents and their children as they seek to constitute new identities despite minimal cultural knowledge of their children's country, gaps in memory, and the absence of connections with birth parents. The themes range widely to include the power of the internet in shaping popular representations of international adoption; the ways in which mythologies and fantasies confront realities as adoptive children make return journeys to their country of origin; and changing national policies of sending countries as they reconsider the stigma they once associated with mixed children adopted internationally who were the product of love and war. The contributors pay close attention to the larger political and economic forces that frame the contradictions and struggles entailed by transnational adoption. At the same time that they do not fall into the trap of romantic narratives of rescuing children, they are sympathetic to the good faith efforts of families to make sense of a world for which few road maps are available. Most, but not all, of the authors are adoptive parents themselves and therefore do not lose sight of the positioning and perspectives underlying the ethics and practices of all the actors and institutions involved in these journeys. This is first-rate ethnography. The book is beautifully edited and well-written; the language is accessible; and many first-hand accounts are offered. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in gaining a solid introduction to the complexity of the issues involved in transnational adoption, as well as to readers more generally interested in kinship, marriage, and the family.

This edited collection by Toby Volkman has a fair few adoptive parents (who are academically working as anthropologists) playing the roles of interrogators, interpreters and story tellers of this global phenomenon. Sometimes the object of their analysis is their own community (adoptive parents) and sometimes it is Others (birth parents, the overseas children they adopt).

This positioning itself is not unusual, for adoptive parents (who are also making a living as adoption researchers, practioners, authors and so on) dominate the publications coming out on the practice of transnational adoption. While their own voices remain valuable, the lack of voices from researchers who are adopted, from the birth countries and birth parents has limitd the lens through which the practice is viewed and understood.

However, this edited collection remains a must have for any adoption researcher - as well as scholars interested in issues of transnationalism, diasporas and "new" or "hybrid" cultural identities. It is also accessible enough for ordinary readers, including adoptive parents begin to overcome many of the myths and fantasies surrounding the practice.

For example, I refer to a very interesting and original discussion piece titled "Chaobao: The Plight of Chinese Adoptive Parents in the Era of the One Child Policy" is provided by a researcher and adoptive parent - Kay Johnson. pp 117 - 141

The discourse, at times, leans on the language and the subjectivity that perhaps only an non-Chinese adoptive parent could foster but it is still a remarkably broad insight into the social stakes of Chinese adoption and abandonment. For Western readers like myself, it also has much sort after rare references to English language but Chinese led studies on the topic. Like all the articles, the interpretations provided are always ready for people to unpack or debate. But what's important is that I've not read anything like this before and think it is worthy of consideration and reflection. Most other works in the collection also remain original and remind us that adopting across borders leads to a kind of cultural and social complexity that can be as challenging as it can be liberating. If you really want to be informed about the latest trends in the multi-actor/layed adoption community, then reading this book is a great start.

Review Supplied by Indigo Willing - PhD Candidate studying Transnational Adoption, Former Rockefeller Fellow in Project Diaspora at UMASS, Boston and Founder of Adopted Vietnamese International in Australia. Transnationally adopted from Saigon to Sydney in 1972.

I've been reading a lot of books about adoption lately, and what I liked about this one was the questions. The Essential Adoption Handbook includes lists of questions to ask yourself, your spouse, the agency, a birth mother, a social worker, and then includes lists of questions that they're all likely to ask you. I thought that there was a lot of information packed into this little book, and that its resources section was informative. If you're considering adoption and you don't know what to read, I'd definitely put this book in your shopping cart!

I read this book at the very beginning of my adoption research and it was an enormous help. It covers domestic, open and int'l adoption and has a great reference section. By the time I finished reading it, it looked like an old phone book, full of highlighted paragraphs, underlines and notes in the margins! It is an excellent book if you are just beginning the process, and have no idea of where to begin. I was clueless when I bought it, and now I have a beautiful daughter from Russia and this book really helped me get there.

In this second book in Mitali Perkins' First Daughter series, Sameera "Sparrow" Righton, the smart, articulate adopted Pakistani daughter of a Republican presidential candidate whose blog helped her father win, is back. This time, though, instead of trying to help out with her father's campaign, Sparrow is moving into the White House!

In White House Rules, Sameera is continuing to adjust to life in the spotlight. Even more than that, really; with the constant presence of the Secret Service, privacy is hard to come by when you're living in the White House. Aside from the fact that she's the President's daughter and dealing with all that comes along with that territory, Sameera also has normal teenage girl stuff to deal with-like guys. She and Bobby were getting really close before, but now he's mysteriously stopped calling.

White House Rules is a worthy sequel to the fun-yet-serious first book in the series, Extreme American Makeover. I felt like the characterizations also got better in this second novel, though Sameera is still a little too perfect to be real a lot of the time. Again, though, Mitali Perkins manages to deal with real, thought-provoking issues (like religious prejudices) in a really fun, quick read. Perkins is a good writer; the pacing and flow of her story are quite good. And it takes a talented author to have a book about romance, friendship, religion, politics, family, bigotry, and more, without any of it seeming odd or forced or out of place. I wasn't quite blown away by White House Rules, but it was an engaging read, if not exactly unforgettable. I'll look forward to book number three in this series, and, in the meantime, maybe look up some of Mitali Perkins' backlist.

In the second book of the FIRST DAUGHTER series, Sameera is unpacking boxes and exploring the White House with her cousin, Miranda. Sameera loves living in the White House. She gets to explore, learn to waltz, and she stills keeps writing in her blog.

But she's also beginning to realize that life in the White House may not be a fairy tale. Bobby, her friend and the guy she likes, stopped calling after her dad became President. When she learns it's because of religious beliefs, she's outraged, just as Bobby is.

There's also a comment left on her blog that leaves her wondering if she really could survive in the real world. She soon hatches a plan to find out -- and it seems that to make life a fairy tale, people have to be willing to take some chances.

To be honest, I love all of those movies about the President's daughter (Chasing Liberty especially), so I was sure I'd love a series of books about the First Daughter, too. I was right!

This book was great. Sameera is one of the best characters I've read about in a while. She's spirited and daring, but she's also honest and she knows when to stop. All of the other characters were amazing, too. WHITE HOUSE RULES is a fun, quirky read and I'd recommend it to anyone, even if you're not a fan of these types of movies.

Reviewed by: Harmony

Our nearly 2 yr old son got this book and we had such fun reading it and acting it out. Perfect before a trip to the beach. I adore this book!!

it s a cute book hpw mother & son play theit favourite game..catch me, gotcha, however, the other book Louie`s goose is better
for 1.5 years-xxx

Hannah West in Deep Water (Hannah West)

My nine-year old daughter is enthralled with all the Hannah West books. She can't wait to read and re-read every one of the books. I'd highly recommend this book and its 'sisters' to any 9-12 year old girl who likes a good mystery.

When twelve-year-old Hannah West, and her adoptive mother are recruited to housesit in the exclusive Portage Bay, living aboard a houseboat, Hannah is thrilled that she will finally have the chance to walk on water. What makes the new gig even more thrilling is the fact that not only does Hannah have the opportunity to dog-sit a friendly Labradoodle (part Labrador, part Poodle) named Mango, but she's also thrown into the midst of a TV shoot for the show Dockside Blues, where Marcus Dartmouth (pronounced Dartmuth), director, is traipsing around the docks demanding that everything remain still. Suddenly, Hannah is displaced from her temporary humble abode, and forced to spend her days traipsing around Seattle, Mango in tow, instead of lollygagging about in a comfortable houseboat. However, when Hannah does finally manage to make her way home, she begins to notice some suspicious things going around. For instance, there are various strangers trotting around the docks wearing black-hooded raincoats. And it's not even raining! As if that weren't suspicious enough, these people appear to be dumping something into the water. Something toxic that is polluting Portage Bay, and killing the fish. Now, in the midst of bright lights, demanding divas, obnoxious stage hands, and a best friend searching for her fifteen minutes of fame, Hannah must find the strength and the time to do a little detective work and uncover who exactly is polluting the clear blue waters of Portage Bay, and what exactly their motive is for committing such a heinous act. But if Hannah's not careful, the fish may not be the only things landing themselves in deep water.

I quickly became a fan of Hannah West after reading Linda Johns' first Hannah adventure, and was ecstatic to learn that the sequel was being released so soon after the first installment. My excitement has not waned since devouring HANNAH WEST IN DEEP WATER, for Hannah's quick-thinking sleuthing skills, artistic abilities, and photography smarts have only made a deeper impression upon me. The idea to have Hannah and her mother move around in each installment is thrilling, and the fact that there is always a dog on hand is absolutely perfect for animal lovers. Hannah is a wonderfully enchanting character whose oft-times sarcastic, yet sugary sweet personality is catching, while her interactions with her zany friend, Lily, make her even more appealing. Featuring an array of eccentric characters who will make you laugh out loud, and cheer for a fabulous outcome, Hannah West is the girl-sleuth of the new millennium whose name will soon be on everyone's lips.

Erika Sorocco
Freelance Reviewer

From Oliver Twist to Anne Shirley (of Green Gables fame), Harry Potter to the Baudelaires, orphans and their stories have fascinated young readers; the idea of trying to survive without parents both compels and repels. "A Home for Foundlings" tells the real story of how children who had no parents and -- possibly more tragically, children whose parents could not support them -- lived in London's Foundling Hospital. Starting with the author's search for his family roots, this book traces the history of the Foundling Hospital from its foundation by the kind Thomas Coram to its ultimate closing in 1953. Readers learn about the children's daily life, including work, education and diet, as well as some of the adult foibles that may have resulted in their placement in the founding hospital (the book gently but frankly addresses the struggles of unwed and/or abandoned mothers). With lots of illustrations and photgraphs, this is an interesting and uplifting look at the tough lives of more than 25,000 orphans and foundlings.

A Home For Foundlings is a beautifully written and incredibly informative book. Marthe Jocelyn manages to use the history of the Foundling Home to give a sense of the greater social history of England from the 18th century through the early twentieth century, particularly as regards the situations of women and children. At the same time the book is fun to read! The many photographs and illustrations are beautiful and fascinating, and the historical detail is carefully sifted through so that it is interesting, memorable and accessible. The stories of individual foundlings are very poignant. Even kids who aren't history buffs will enjoy this book very much; those who like history will be enthralled.