Book Review: Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul

by Pam Connell | More from this Blogger

30 Apr 2009 02:07 PM

Published just last year, Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul is another in the series of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books which seek to offer comfort and healing to the spirit.

As many of you know, the series includes fifty-plus books offering this classic comfort food for the souls of.....couples, single parents, teens, preteens, kids, mothers, scrapbookers, sports fans, brides, shoppers, college students, fishermen, dieters, horse lovers....and more.

The series' founders, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, co-edit this volume with LeAnn Thieman, herself an adoptive parent as well as a nurse who was caught up in the Operation Babylift effort to get children out of Vietnam before Saigon fell.

The book is heavy on essays from adoptive parents rhapsodizing about their miracles (but give us a break, an awful lot of us have near-miraculous stories to tell!), but also includes stories written by birth mothers, adult adoptees, foster parents, nurses and police officers who encountered adoption in their work roles, and an adoptive grandmother.

The book includes essays about domestic newborn and toddler adoption, adoption from foster care, single parents adopting, adoption of sibling groups and of children with special needs, transracial adoption in the U.S., and international adoption from China, Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Hungary, Romania, Russia, and several Latin American countries including Guatemala and Columbia.

Particularly unique or touching stories include: an adult Korean adoptee meeting pregnant mothers at an unwed mothers' home in Korea, a grandmother wondering if she will really come to love her adopted grandchild, several stories of "meant to be" or "unmistakable messages" linking families-to-be.

One memorable essay is by a birthmother who was herself adopted as a child. She met her birthmother when she was eleven, but she still couldn't understand how someone could love her so much and still let her go. The birthmother herself became pregnant and planned to place her child for adoption, then changed her mind and attempted parenting. She has heartwarming memories of her son, but when he was two she was forced to conclude that he rarely saw her as she worked two jobs just to keep minimal food on the table and a roof over their heads. She placed him for adoption, and even though she doesn't know where he is to this day, she now understands her birthmother's love.

There are also interrelated stories of Operation Babylift children, told by a woman who helped organize the airlift, by that woman's adopted Vietnamese daughter, by two adults who were children of the Babylift, and by the adoptive mother of one of these children.

Like most Chicken Soup for the Soul books, this is a light read, perfect for a little inspiration or to put a smile on your face.

Please see these related blogs:

Release of New Chicken Soup for the Soul Book: Life Lessons for Mastering the Law of Attraction

Interview with Nancy Vogl, Co-Author of "Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul"

Learn more about Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism.

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