Adoption Books

Imagine you're on a train to a place you don't know, with hundreds of other children riding with you. At the next stop you get off and you're on display for people to see. Complete strangers come over to examine you and scrutinize over whether to adopt you, one of the orphan train riders, into their homes. We Rode the Orphan Trains by Andrea Warren narrates the accounts of seven riders who experienced what is was like to ride the orphan trains. First the author gives a short review of what the orphan trains are all about and the life of one agent who rode with the children to their new homes. Any child who was orphaned or abandoned could be put on the orphan train. These trains then went from town to town where the children, some infants, others in their teens, were put on display and the townspeople wanting to adopt would come over. After that any child wanted by a family would go and live with them. In the case of Arthur Field this worked out well and he grew up living a happy life. Nettie and Nellie Enns suffered under a cruel mother and were promptly taken to a new home where they found happiness. We Rode the Orphan Trains is quite engaging and leads you into the minds of those people who rode the Orphan Trains.

The book is packed with useful information and invaluable to anyone learning about the orphan trains. Two introductory chapters help you understand what the orphan trains is all about. The next seven chapters deal with the lives of seven riders and include excerpts and background on each rider. The last chapter discusses briefly the future of the orphan trains. You don't have to wade through a huge, heavy book on the history of orphans to learn about the orphan trains. We Rode the Orphan Trains presents the material in an enjoyable manner and whether you're writing a paper or reading just for pleasure, this book fulfills both tasks.

The novel is very well written and thought provoking. Not all people agreed with the orphan trains. Some thought it unfair and cruel to "give away" children to complete strangers. Many times siblings could not be taken together. Others argued that the orphan trains were the best way to find homes for orphaned children. Shelters and orphanages were often poor and overcrowded with kids. Also, after children were placed in a home, an agent came every year to check on them, much like modern day adoption.

We Rode the Orphan Trains is, unlike some history books, fun and easy to read and understand. If you're enjoying something it's likely you'll get more out of it. Fast paced and overall fascinating are adjectives I'd use to describe this book. The narratives of the various people interviewed are interesting to read and lead you into the mind of the orphans who rode the orphan trains.

I highly recommend We Rode the Orphan Trains. It contains great historical information presented in a lucid and engaging style.

A.Marshall

I enjoyed this book but I had not known it was so short. There are less than 125 pages. It is typed double-spaced and there are many pictures, some of them taking up a full page. I greatly enjoyed the pictures but I just hadn't expected a book I could go through so quickly.

Lahni Schuler sometimes just doesn't understand her life.

She doesn't understand why a Caucasian couple would adopt an African American baby. She doesn't understand why they would enroll that girl in a private school where she is the only African American. She doesn't understand why some of the girls at the school are so snotty and so ignorant, especially towards her. And she definitely doesn't understand why her parents are continuously arguing, when just weeks ago they would all watch movies together as a happy family.

What she does know is that she doesn't fit in, that her comfort zone involves keeping to herself, sometimes not even telling her best friend, Katie, everything, and that she has to be strong, especially for her mother, and that somewhere inside she has this amazing voice.

Mr. Faringhelli knows this, too, and wants Lahni to sing in a competition. Of course, Lahni isn't so sure about this, since it is out of her comfort zone, and she just doesn't think she could do it. Then the perfect timing comes into place when she decides to sing for her church's choir; what better way to practice singing, especially in front of a live audience. She not only surprises herself with this bold move, but also her mother. It's finally a place for Lahni to improve, to fit in, to forget all of her worries that continue to trouble her. It is the perfect escape.

Even though she does have the choir to comfort her, she knows that she will still have to deal with the girls at her school, and with her father leaving all of the time on little trips during the week, acting clueless and not wanting to talk about the situation at all. And she still has to deal with the singing competition. Just as long as she knows she has her friends and the ones she loves by her side, she can accomplish anything.

WHEN THE BLACK GIRL SINGS is an inspirational story that will amaze all readers. The story of a girl who never fit in until she finally embraced her talent and turned it into something beautiful, shows how anyone, regardless of race, or gender, or size, can easily accomplish anything, just as long as they know they can. This is one well-written novel that will be enjoyed by generations to come.

Reviewed by: Randstostipher "tallnlankyrn" Nguyen

After reading Bil Wright's first two books, I was eager to get my hands on "When the Black Girl Sings." When I opened the book I was a little disappointed to see that it is actually intended for young readers. Being a not-so-young reader, I began the first page thinking the book would be too juvenile to hold my interest. In the hands of another author, this may have been the case. Wright is such a masterful storyteller, though, that I was captured from page #1. His imagery is direct and not at all flowery, and he never stoops to talking down to his reader or, worse, using current teen language to tell the story. Instead, he has crafted a feel-good novel that will certainly appeal to young readers without alienating their parents (or grandparents).

It is refreshing to read the work of a Black author that does not focus on violence, drugs, and innercity life. Indeed, Wright has set his story in a well-to-do Connecticut suburb.

This is not the typical "where do I fit in?" teen venture. Instead, the author touches on sensitive topics for substance instead of dramatic impact. The impact of this story, though, is one that will have a positive effect on the reader.

In his earlier work, Wright established himself as more than an able craftsman. He continues to uphold his impressive reputation in this effort. This story is very well suited for a television adaptation and it leaves the reader looking forward to a sequel.

I thought the book was awesome! I finished the book in about 3 hours I got so interested in it I couldn't put it down. I really enjoyed the ending. Although this was fictional, we are all put on earth by God for a purpose. Most of us never find what their purpose is but we all have one. I hope Isreal does remember his.:) I recommend this novel.

This intriguing novel (told from a fetus's perspective) starts when during the mother's 6th week of pregnancy. Think of the movie 'Look Who's Talking Now'- but the baby is still inside of his mother.

In the novel, Womb Child, you will meet Israel, a fetus who is determined to remember and accomplish his God-given purpose- to negotiate peace between two Middle Eastern countries that will be on the brink of a nuclear war in 2038.

In the midst of Israel expressing his contemplations and Godly wisdom, he realizes that his parents are running into various hardships. These vicissitudes of life will cause Israel's parents to answer tough questions and make even tougher decisions.

This book will be enjoyed by those who are convinced that they and/or their children have a great purpose in life. Womb Child will also provoke people to take inventory of their own lives, and to purposefully position themselves to pursue their greatest good.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I know little about adoption in any real sense, and it does not concern me personally. At most, I recall as a child noticing that two brothers, in a neighbour's family, looked dissimilar. My mother, ever the straight arrow, told me that she had talked to the mother and the two boys were "adopted", explaining what that meant. It seemed normal to me then, and I haven't changed my opinion since.

Many years later, I was required to ajudicate international adoptions. I wanted to understand better what I was doing and I came across this book. The stories may be old but it wisely presents three sides to a single story.

Ben Wicks was a cartoonist I knew as a newspaper reader. Never did I suspect his wish to ensure all sides should be told. His editing is good. But the idea of the book is the marvel. The narratives, in the first person, ring as true as life itself.

If you want to understand the human side of adoption, and the effect it has on all three sides, this book offers, in the opinion of this outsider, a good, honest read. (It was also an easy read, indeed a page turner!)

A consequence of my reading this book? The files were marked for destruction 30 years hence, as opposed to the previous policy of 2 years.

Real life stories of adoption, the pain it causes to both birthfamily and adoptee's. When it comes to real people spilling out their feelings, the truth be told! Adoption is NOT the answer. Ben Wicks did this so well.

this book kept me reading and reading it is very imtresting my favorite character is Sunny

Yes, these are kids books, but my wife and my son, both older and more mature than the target audience, have already read (that is to say devoured, in Mark's case, finishing the 13-book series in 1 week) and recommended the books, and the movie (Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Widescreen Edition)) introducing the characters invites further curiosity about the books.

So, Book the First is a good start, with sly humor, the occasional wink at the camera, and enough (and bad enough but no more) unfortunate events to propel the story forward nicely.

Next up: The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 2)

Absolutely enchanting. If grief and horror could ever be so practically and charmingly applied in the real world, it would probably be a better place. The writing style may off-set some, but it's quirky, odd, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's an off-beat story with unexpectedly powerful heart.

If you like unhappy endings with mischief, then Unfortunate Events is a good book for you. It is very exciting with lots of creepy stuff going on, from finding rats in your kitchen, and bugs in your bed.
-MB, student

It is sad to read some of the pathetic one star reviews here on Amazon. These adults seem to not understand the book at all. Which does not mean it is not a great crossover book to be enjoyed by adults and kids alike.

First of all the entire premise is delightfully original. You get hooked in knowing all the misfortune that haunts the Baudelaire children. Lemony Snicket tells you it is not something you want to read if you like sugary happy endings which makes me wonder why the idiots who gave it one star wouldn't heed this good advice.

Compared to the dull snoozefest that is Harry Potter, this is very much more entertaining, engaging and well written.

He has a way with words and with every book in the series using alliteration in the title and every one with 13 chapters to form the 13 books in the series, makes you more curious about it all. I especially enjoyed his way with explaining some words and phrases to the young reader - noteworthy being - difference between "literally" and "figuratively" and the word "standoffish".

Bad things indeed happen to these young ones and as in all children's book the adults don't seem to understand the evil plot until it is too late. All children's book from Enid Blyton to any book of today shows kids as the brave, enterprising, adventurous and witty ones. It is sad that some adults find this insulting but these protagonists are the "heroes" of the novel and if there is an adult hero in some novel, no one complains about the kids being portrayed as stupid.

The Bad Beginning starts with very bad news indeed. And the orphans now seek peace of mind in various ways. Children could learn humility, kindness, adventurousness, being polite and also grace & modesty in adversity. These kids are resourceful and stick together and know how to deal with negative and positive influences. There is a lot to learn here for kids and adults alike (especially the one-star rating adults).

The movie version is a very different story from the book but Jim Carey plays Count Olaf by the book.

You will enjoy this book and like me probably collect the entire series. I got all 13 on a Sale at USD 2 each at a local bookstore chain. All hardcover printed in Italy it is a bargain of a lifetime I pulled off.

The wonderful Baudelaire kids with the pretty inventor Violet and the thoughtful all reading Klaus and the cutest baby in literature - Sunny, make for wonderful light reading and I bought these 13 books yesterday and am already into book 2.

Buy the first one and give it a try. Unless you are one of those parents who thinks their kids will become Devil worshippers through something as lame as Harry Potter or are overprotective enough of your kids to bar them from going to a regular school, preferring home education under lock and key - unless you are that type of person - your kids will surely enjoy it very much.

An inspiring story. Better than Dicken's orphans but not as thrilling as Mark Twain's orphans.

I received this book for Christmas from my sister, because she knows what a great dog lover I am. (If she had read the book first, I'm certain she wouldn't have forwarded it to me.) I think I'm safe in saying that it is the most poorly-written book I've ever read. It's boring, rambling, name-dropping, and self-indulgent.

Who doens't like a great dog story? I know I do. Rescuing Sprite is just that. I admire Mark Levin and the love he has for his dogs Pepsi and Sprite. It takes a special family to adopt an older dog.
I found most of the novel to be general and generic discriptions of his life with the dogs, and I wish we got to know more about who the dogs were and some of the adventures with them. I feel like it was missing that for the reader- the essence of who the dogs were. We all love our dogs, but it's missing the things that make books like Grogan's Marley and Me so awesome. If you really want to read a great dog book read that one. This one was not a page turner since I felt like Levin just recounted events rather than roped you into a story. Still, it's moving the emotion he had for his animals.

The dogs I have grieved most intensely over, I realize, have been the ones I who were in my life the shortest amount of time. Perhaps it is the deep wish that more time could have been granted to me with these dogs. So it was I think with Mark, who had only two short years with Sprite, and whose detailed expression of grief was more pure and honest and heart-wrenching than any I could ever imagine. This man has given us a gift of his love and devotion, and his book is a tribute not only to Sprite but to all of us who have ever felt what he did. The reviewers who didn't read the book all the way through missed the most valuable part of it -- it wasn't about the dog himself, with all kinds of amazing and enjoyable cute "stories", but about Mark's FEELINGS about this dog, expressed so incredibly well as Sprite's days came to an end. I think this will be a catharsis for many readers who have gone through the same thing fighting the pain all the way. The only way to deal with it is to let yourself feel it. This will help, I know it will. It helped me.

Bought this book for a friend who recently lost a very dear four-legged friend. They appreciated the book.

I love dogs and I love books about dogs, but this one stinks. Sorry.

I laughed, I cried, I felt like it was a story parrallel to my own. Came out of this book feeling like I knew Rosie and was so touched at how she was able to describe feelings that actually made you understand her joys and pains. This was one of the best reads in a long time for me. I am in the midst of Celebrity Detox but I am not finding it as hard to put down as Find Me was.

O'Donnell is contacted by a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder who pretends to be an abused, pregnant teenager who was raped by a youth minister. O'Donnell deeply identifies with her, which makes you wonder if she was molested by someone in her church. She ferociously bonds with this woman, even when she finds out the girl doesn't exist and the real woman is someone like her now. She still corresponds with this woman. This story is woven between scattered memories of her mother. We all lose our mother sooner or later, and the ones who lost her sooner suffer more, but you shouldn't drag it through the rest of your life like a crutch. Still, O'Donnell became rich and famous and can now support that crutch in grand style. Those of us not rich and famous just have to snap out of it. And that's it. It's not a biography because the glimpses of her journey to fame are too brief and disconnected. It's a depressing book.

but Rosie O'Donnel is a nutjob. She has serious issues. The fact that she flew this clinically insane woman out to NYC for a meet n' greet says loads about her own insanity. I had the heebie jeebies after reading this book. Rosie - you need therapy. And if you're already in therapy, you need to fire your shrink and get a better one.

Sorry I know it's not much but it's all I had. Seriously though, this woman's great ham-like head could hide the Great Wall from alien space invaders. You couldn't mount her head above the fireplace in the den, you'd have to mount over the Jumbo-tron at the Astro-Dome.

And if there was ever a woman born of woman who looked MORE like Fred Flintstone, I've never seen her.

I bought this book at the dollar store and I think it was overpriced. I can't believe anyone published this book. It is like reading someone's story of a dream they had. It is confusing and it is just a dream so, who cares. Why would you want to read about it? I like Rosie, but I think you are missing nothing if you skip this book. I thought it would be a kind of bio, but it wasn't that at all. It was strange, and not even in an interesting way.

"Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans..." John Lennon's lyric are words to live by in this hardy Victorian chestnut about a simple miser who finds love at his doorstep one snowy evening.

Published in 1861, George Eliot's novel has a reputation for dreary earnestness that kept me away from it for quite some time, until I decided to make an effort at reading all the books I successfully avoided in high school. "Silas Marner" turned out one of the easier assignments, not only because of its shortness and simplicity, but for Eliot's engaging manner of writing, which feels less wedded to its time than even more famous writers of her generation like Dickens.

Marner is a weaver and a kind of social exile who sets up his home and business in the English country town of Raveloe. Not happy but content, he spends his time either working or sleeping, his sole recreation being the counting of his gold coins. All this is suddenly taken away from him, but Silas's misfortune turns out to be a blessing, pushing him out of what had been a rut-like comfort zone.

"Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us," Eliot notes early on in Silas's transformation. "There have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud."

There's a lot to like about "Marner" the novel. The title character is a real treasure of literature as Eliot describes him, not because he's particularly exciting so much as because he's so readily identifiable, especially with those of us who are old enough to know disappointment in life. Many reviewers here compare him to Scrooge; Marner is a materialist and a bitter social outcast, but unlike Scrooge he retains a certain palpable sympathy and humanity throughout. This in turn makes the character's journey more compelling.

Eliot captures a pastoral vision of English village life that feels absorbing and affecting, even if it is a bit gauzy. Her philosophic asides are marvelously quotable without ever getting in the way of the narrative. Her plot twists are well designed and hardly predictable, at least to me; I was especially impressed by how she dealt with a long-absent antagonist late in the story.

But here's an odd criticism for a Victorian novel: It wasn't long enough. That's actually a problem, as the central game-changing transformative act of "Silas Marner" takes place when the novel's already half-over, and from then on the story speeds toward a spotlessly tidy resolution. The development of Silas's relationship with the others in his village, and with the little girl that changes him, feels rushed.

To want more of a book is thin criticism of what is there. Perhaps a solution might be to read it again, for Eliot's ruminations on how people deal with the specter of misfortune, using various designs to try and ward it off, are both deep and charming. Her metaphysics are a trifle muzzy (I'm not sure if she was a Deist or an agnostic; maybe she was both at various times) but her take on the human condition comes across as well-grounded and relevant. She is a keen social critic, but not a blanket one; her take on organized religion manages to be both dubious and positive.

In short, this woman with a man's nom de plume is very hard to pigeonhole, which also goes for her nifty novel. To adults like me of a certain age, the title may suggest boring homework assignments thankfully dodged, but "Silas Marner" is a real treat worth picking up.

If you're required to read this book in high school, then kudos to your teacher for introducing you to George Eliot.

Having said that, when I was in high school, I wouldn't have appreciated George Eliot either. She was a master crafter of literature, choosing words thoughtfully and laying patiently the foundation of characters, observations, storylines to form a more perfect novel. In other words, to most high school readers of classic literature, her books can be boring.

But wait at least 10 years, pick up her works again, and find yourself pulled into stories that simultaneously take you back to provincial Victorian England while portraying the lives of characters who could be your friends, family, yourself.

Silas Marner is a wonderful precursor to Eliot's Middlemarch. The story focuses on the main title character, of course, following this sad little weaver from the time he was a respected member of his community to the moment he was cast out to his wandering and settling in sleepy Raveloe where he seeks to be left alone. Betrayed by his best friend and rejected by his fellow worshippers at Lantern Yard, Silas loses faith in God and people. He means to live the rest of his life in Raveloe, shielded from the God who failed him and from people who would only disappoint and hurt him.

He passes the next 15 or so years of his life, shunning society who responds to this odd-looking stranger by alienating him. Silas finds solace in weaving, weaving, weaving, accumulating gold for his work, and transferring his love to these gold pieces.

Silas' core is shaken again by a shocking event, and he is in danger of soon dying a broken man. He is restored when a little girl with golden curls toddles into his life. He comes to believe the gold he lost came back to him in this "golden-haired replacement." And from then, Silas is slowly drawn back to life, back to society, back to faith in God. The little orphan he saves and names Eppie ends up saving him.

Sounds like a simple almost sappy story, no? Under George Eliot's pen, it's a wonderful telling of faith (in God, in people, in life) lost and found because of unconditional love for a little child. But it's also much more than that. The story explores themes of alienation, societal rejection of otherness and being different, questions of where one fits in society and how that role is interdependent on one's participation in society as well as its acceptance of one on what terms, love of course as a restorative panacea, love between a father and his adopted daughter trumping all, and so many different aspects of life and its challenges and rewards.

All of these ideas are so expertly presented and turned over, my eyes were sometimes stopped dead in their tracks by a passage that I would then reread several times to appreciate the beauty of its truth and language. I'm about to date myself (I'm currently in my late 30s), but I just had to share one of the most memorable observations I'd read in a long time. It's about Godfrey Cass, a man who seems to have everything, except a child to call his own:

"Meanwhile, why could he not make up his mind to the absence of children from a hearth brightened by such a wife? Why did his mind fly uneasily to that void, as if it were the sole reason why life was not thoroughly joyous to him? I suppose it is the way with all men and women who reach middle age without the clear perception that life never *can* be thoroughly joyous: under the vague dulness of the grey hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation of an untried good."

I don't think George Eliot is saying here that Godfrey is silly for wanting a child when he has everything else a man could possibly want. It is the idea of many men and women never being able to be truly happy and forever chasing some thing, which they find is lacking in their life at that time, because they're sure that thing will make them happy. This is the classic middle crisis, but it is universal in us all to desire what we can't have and to think our happiness depends on us getting it. It doesn't of course.

I say this book is a precursor to Middlemarch because we start to see in this novel George Eliot's beginning of writing novels with distinct townsfolk full of characters as memorable as the main characters -- folks that populate a village and are as recognizable as your kind neighbor, local bartender, neighborhood elder. I'm thoroughly entertained George Eliot's creations here: Mr. Macey, Dolly Winthrop, Squire Cass and his brood, Nancy and Priscilla and their respectable kin.

So why did I not give this 5 stars? Honestly, it was too short. Much time was spent on Silas and his life before finding Eppie, but not enough was flushed out in the story after. I loved the chapter when Eliot described how this old bachelor is suddenly befuddled by the two-year-old he's adopted and becoming a father to her. Where does he begin? And when Eppie turns 3 and mischievous, it's hilarious to follow Silas as he tries to discipline his precious...and can't. Those little nuggets are treasured by this newish mom. But it comes to an end too soon and Eppie is next seen as an 18-year-old girl about to embark on her new life.

The second part of the book feels hastily completed. Loose ends are tied up; difficult conversations improbably take place and are resolved in one day; Silas' journey to his old life at the former Lantern Yard and back home to Raveloe is rushed; and Eppie's story has its happy ending.

Had George Eliot wanted to keep writing to flesh out all these paltry scenes, I would have happily kept reading and delighted to have given this book a 5-star rating.

When I read, I tried instead of condemning Silas Marner, to see the book through his eyes. And as the book went on, I almost felt myself getting dimmer,more cut off from society. It was rather sad.

The book isn't the best representative of what life in 19th century England would have been like, but it is a very good picture of how uncultured people treat other people from other lands. It's only when misfortune falls upon that person, do they accept them.

I absolutely loved the fact that Silas found a "golden-haired replacement". That was the sweetest thing I've read in my life, how he instantly wanted to protect her and give her the best things in life. Godfrey seemed nice at first, but as the book uncovered his past, I started to like him less and less. He needed to act like a man, buck up and take control of his life, and not be constantly cowed by his father. I can understand due to the time period why he thought Eppie would come with him and Nancy, but still, the way he kept asking even after she said no the first time was rude.

The book was very uninteresting in the beginning. I had to force myself to read it. It was only after Dunsey stole Silas's money that it began to be interesting. Still, it was a sweet book and I liked it a lot.

This book is required reading for freshman in our high school. This version is very hard to read due to the Old English style of writing.

Silas Marner is a skillfully crafted novel to be enjoyed by readers with varied tastes. It was written by a woman, who found it necessary to use a man's name because of attitudes in England in the nineteenth century. It is built around problems that all of us face in our lives, such as, "How important is money?" As in all great novels, the characters change as the plot develops.

SILAS MARNER is a realistic novel because it portrays life in a real and believable fashion. The author, Mary Ann Evans, who used the pen name, George Eliot, pays careful attention to a few distinguishing details about here characters and settings.

For example, we can see Silas Marner, the central character of the novel, with his pale skin and undersized body. We know how he looks with his large, near-sighted, bulging eyes. We can see the important-looking village of Raveloe, which lives peacefully in opulent neglect.

When I was a teacher, I directed many high school sophomores to read SILAS MARNER. Most students dreaded reading the novel included in their literature textbooks. Once they met Silas and spent enough time with him to become acquainted with his unique personality, they became eager readers of this well-crafted classic.

It has some of the same qualities that made Pride and Prejudice (Vintage Classics) an endearing and enduring novel. In both works, the idyllic English countryside is an enjoyable escape from everyday life. There is romantic courtship in both, but the romance of SILAS MARNER is not the central theme; therefore it is not as compelling as that in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Since the readers are not required to become obsessed with yearning for romantic fulfillment, young guys who were in my class felt free to enjoy it. (Sixteen year old young men are still self-conscious about these matters.) Both books contain the same kind of satire buffered with compassion. In both novels we laugh with the local rural and village people. Because the language in SILAS MARNER is less complex, adolescent readers enjoy it more than they do PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

When as a student I first read SILAS MARNER in high school and when I read it with my students, I considered the coincidences plot weaknesses. Life doesn't work that way, I thought. Now that I have experienced a life of incredible coincidences, I no longer find anything in the book unbelievable. Events caused by Silas Marner's catalepsy seemed unlikely, but now they represent no problem.

Theft with its resulting bitterness provides conflict with which the readers can identify. Earlier I found it difficult to believe that the lightning of theft could strike twice, but that part of the plot is one more realistic element now. Other twists and turns with their ironic mysteries are typical of human life as I have lived it.

All the parts of the novel that seemed to be a contrived fairy tale are now a vignette of life. Even if I could not believe it all, the book would still break my heart the way Forrest Gump does with its twists and turns of satirical accounts.

When I enjoyed SILAS MARNER in my twenties with thirty teenagers at a time, I did not notice the shaping of Silas' religious beliefs as much as I do now. I remember that the students and I were indignant about the way Silas was duped by the evil church members at Lantern Yard. Now I have compassion for them, especially William, as well as for Silas.

Mary Ann Evans showed the futility of idolatry. All my students understood the disaster of worshiping money. If I could return to my students, I would like to ask them what they thought of the villagers who seemed to rely on the habits of their church to bring them close to God. Could we discuss that in the 21st century? I feel sure we would discuss the addiction to narcotics as it is realistically portrayed.

SILAS MARNER is a great English novel not difficult to read, but rich in insights. It shows what is evil and what is good in human hearts.

Rarely, if ever, have I seen a book about an eleven-year-old child that I would consider great literature. Rarely have I read a book about an eleven-year-old child multiple times, year after year after year, as I grow further and further past eleven, and laughed and cried out loud each time.

This book is a work of art. It is everything a book should be. Katherine Paterson has created a most remarkable character in Gilly Hopkins: she is someone who can be appreciated by the toughest and the softest, the most cynical and the most sensitive. She's funny; really, genuinely funny; and I really did burst out laughing many times. I also burst out crying, and that has never happened to me before with any book. I was reading the last chapter through sobs, and even after I put it down, I couldn't stop crying for a while after.

If you have ever felt that even while you have a house, you lack a home... if you have ever felt unloved by your parents... if you have ever had to say goodbye to someone who truly did love you and accept you for yourself... if you have ever put on a smile to hide the tears... if you have ever acted tough so no one will hear you screaming inside... if you know what pain is... well, then you will understand Gilly. You won't just understand her, you will feel that she is you and you are her. You will cry for her, you will want the same things she wants, and you will come to understand yourself through understanding her.

This book will take you on a journey of the self. It is one of those very few, very special books that can be read by a ten-year-old and a ninety-year-old and appreciated by both. Whatever age you are, whatever stage of life you are in, if you know what Trotter means when she says that "life is tough"... read this book. You will cry, yes, but you probably needed a good cry anyway, and you will also be changed.

Gilly Hopkins is a sixth grade foster child on her way to her new home after being abandoned by one and expelled from the other for bad behavior. A very angry little girl, Gilly just thinks of ways to hurt her foster mother, her timid foster brother, and her strict teacher. Gilly dreams of her mother coming to save her and to have a permanent home. The story is a bit dated (Gilly's mom was a flower child and she's quite tame for a foster child), but the message and the portrayal of such a child is still very significant and moving. The characters and situation and ending is very realistic and moving. Wonderful and engaging book. Grade: A

....thats why I like this book. Everything we do isn't always happily ever after sometimes its just BLAH. You get pulled into this book and its hard to put it down. Even though its for young readers I still enjoy this book to this day. I remember my first time reading it and I still had a problem with having to stop.... must finish reading it. Katherine Paterson is a good author. Next stop Bridge to Terabithia.......*grin* Great Book!

My 11-year old recommended this book. She had read it at school. So we read it together. We loved it! The story is fascinating and the characters are wonderful. It's the story of an 11 or 12 year-old girl who has become hardened and deceitful because of her experiences as a foster child that is moved around to different families. She's white and has grown up racist ... but this changes ... not in a sudden epiphany (how rare those are!) ... her feelings and behavior change slowly ... organically. I highly recommend this book.

Eleven-year-old Galadriel "Gilly" Hopkins has been shuffled from foster home to foster home since she was three years old. Every time she becomes used to a new family, they find a reason to get rid of her. And so, to protect herself against the hurt, Gilly's decided to be awful to everyone. So what if she doesn't have friends? Gilly's decided that pushing everyone away from the onset is the only way to survive...that, and refuse to give up the idea that the beautiful mother she last saw as a toddler is actually planning to come rescue her any day now.

However, Gilly's newest foster mother, Trotter, isn't so easily pushed away. She's used to difficult children, and she's determined to get through to Gilly -- who, in turn, is repulsed by her large size, by quiet little foster brother William Ernest, and by Mr. Randolph, the elderly blind neighbor who eats with the family each night.

Just when Gilly's finally beginning to accept Trotter's home as her own, fate intervenes, and once again, Gilly's world is turned upside down.

Some readers reject this book, as Gilly is something of a racist, and there is a particular scene where she writes a nasty poem to her sixth-grade teacher, who is black. However, I disagree with banning it -- I feel that Gilly's behavior is on target with her upbringing and inner turmoil. Paterson isn't throwing in racist situations gratuitously, but rather using them as fodder for Gilly's personal development -- and, in fact, showing readers the world as it really is. It's up to Gilly, and everyone, to learn how to deal with prejudices and establish a strong sense of self.

This is a useful read for potential adoptive parents, or even the parents of children who have been separated from birth parents for any reason.

However, I found that the author wildly idealised and exaggerated the connection and understanding of birth parents with their children. Birth parents do not automatically know and understand their children and their baby's needs. This is learned, through successive children and also through getting to know the individual child. The author's experience of the challenge of of parenting the first child, who was adopted, then the inevitably easier task of parenting the second child (birth child), has overly coloured her views. She is also promoting her catch phrase concept "primal wound" as a slogan, by regularly italicising and emphasising this phrase in a manner that is not justified by the written context.

She is clearly anti-adoption as a solution for children without a home, and homes without children, but does not address the equally damaging effects of children remaining in abuse situations.

She also presents the harm to adopted children as inevitable, whereas that does not reflect the many many well-balanced adopted adults that I know, some of whom are curious about their birth families and have contacted them, some of whom have no interest or curiosity whatsoever.

Simply amazing and wonderful book for anyone involved in the adoption triad. Opened up my eyes to things I never thought of before. Thank you for publishing this book. It is a hard read at times, but a must read.

I am the adoptive mother of a four year old and and the bio mother of a 2 and half year old.
There are some interesting and helpful stories in here, but I am very concerned how the author takes her experience as first an adoptive mother, and then a biological mother, and assumes that she speaks for all adoptive parents.
I think she might not have dealt with her own infertility..because there is a really OBNOXIOUS statement in the books where she says "..and for those of use who are biological mothers, only we can know.." that doesn't ring true for me and friends I spoke to who have given birth.
From a scientific standpoint, her sample size and data analysis are quackery.
So, she is a psychologist> Big deal. So is Dr. Phil .
In an update version of the book, she states with certainty that any child born via a surrogate mother will have primal wound..a child who was in the NICU, and she is starts to hint that she believes children whose mother work full time are going to have a primal wound as well.

I am surprised that no one is addressing her inclusion of those children into this category as well.

She reminds me of a psychology student how happens upon a hypothesis or theoretical model and applies it broadly to everything.

Shy? Adopted
Perfectionist? adopted
Have Add? Adopted
Gay? adopted
Atheist? adopted
trouble with relationships? Adopted
trouble with change? adopted
Needy? adopted
Independent? adopted
Gregarious? adopted
sexually promiscious? adopted
drug addiction? adopted
never leave home? adopted
got a divorce? yup, you guessed it, its all because you were adopted

Certainly, seperation from your first mother is a trauma of some sort, but whether it explains the constellation of human behaviors she attributes it to, come on, lady!

Also, so adoptive parents might never be good enough? Parenting is a humbling experience, and I don't know if anyone of us will ever be enough ! To assume that your biological connection to your child guarantees an absence of pain or trouble is pretty ridiculous.

As an adoptive parent of an older child, I've found this book to be a complete and total validation.

No doubt there are adoptions that go off without a hitch, and I also have no doubt that some children adjust quite well, thank you very much.

But our experience, while wonderful, has also been quite difficult, for all the reasons explained in this book. My child most definitely has transferred anger directed at the birth mother to me. I've become a more patient and much more mature person as a result.

But I do wish that someone had advised us before adoption that the process is indeed fraught with risk, not the least of which is the child's complete and total envelopment by fear of another abandonment.

Besides describing the emotional trauma of the child, this book also deals quite effectively with the pain and wounds suffered by the birth parents and adoptive parents.

Normally, science requires blind studies and control groups. Verrier's work was not done that way, obviously because there is no way to scientifically measure the things she is talking about.

Of course, it would be interesting for sociologists or anthropologists to set up long term life studies of the effects of adoption on children, adoptive parents and birth parents.

But until someone raises the funds to do such a prolonged and massive piece of work, this book is most definitely one of the best available on the subject of adoption, for it addresses all kinds of normal reactions that physicians and psychologists typically address as if they were pathological. When one considers, however, these reactions, of all members of the adoption triad, are really quite normal, and healthy.

I've read many books on adoption over the last decade-plus, and I wish this had been the first of them. But now that I've read it in its entirety, I cannot but recommend it to pediatrician and psychologist training programs as required reading.

Thank you Ms. Verrier.

---Alyssa A. Lappen

This book is why adoptees are seen by the public as "troubled". Not all of us feel the so-called "Primal Wound", and I for one, am insulted by almost every sentence in it.

My birth mother thinks this book and its author are akin to the second coming, but I say, why not think for yourself? You don't need a book (and a poor one at that) to tell you how you feel.