I finally have my wish, which I blogged about nearly three years ago, to see pictures of adoptive families in books that aren’t specifically about adoption. In My Heart, by author-illustrator Molly Bang, is a wonderful author and illustrator who has received three Caldecott Honors. In My Heart is a book that will be wonderfully reassuring to all children. It helps them deal with separation from a parent. It portrays the life of a working family, narrated by the mother, who tells how she misses her child when she is at her job (a veterinarian), but then reminds herself to … Continue reading →

“Dedicated with love to my son’s mother and mine,” writes Jana Wolff in her memoir Secret Thoughts of An Adoptive Mother. This sentence, as well as Wolff’s chapter “Mother’s Day or Mothers’ Day?” reveal Wolff’s understanding spirit, which shines through her memoir even as she discloses the conflicting thoughts and feelings that we all have. In her introduction, Wolff says that while she was a parent-in-waiting beginning the (domestic newborn) adoption process, she found books and articles about how to adopt, but none which talked about feelings brought up by different stages of the adoptive process. This book is an … Continue reading →

This book is called For the Love of a Child: The Journey of Adoption (not to be confused with another book called For Love of a Child: Stories of Adoption). This book is published by Deseret Press especially for Latter-Day Saints, but it is very useful for all expectant parents considering placing a child for adoption and their families, as well as informative for relatives, school personnel, counselors and church leaders. The book is unique in its exploration of the spiritual journey many people go through in dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, infertility, and/or adoption. The first part of the … Continue reading →

Children of Open Adoption and their Families, by Kathleen Silber and Patricia Martinez Dorner, is an important read for adoptive parents, whether their adoptions are open or not. Other books describe the process of adoption. This book explores how the children in open adoptions actually feel and think, and how the adoptive and birth family members feel. These stories of children and their parents are a gold mine for those of us who’ve always wondered, “But how does open adoption work, exactly?” This book was written in 1987, but open adoption had already been in place in some agencies for … Continue reading →

I wrote a blog last week that mentioned that teen mothers who place their babies for adoption are more likely to stay in school and remain off welfare than teens who choose to parent. I said that today, the peer pressure among teens is along the lines of “how could someone be so unnatural and irresponsible as to give up her own baby?” My writing probably showed that I wish more teens knew about adoption and thought of it as a positive solution. This blog reviews a book about the other side of the story. The Girls Who Went Away: … Continue reading →