Search Results for: blog book review throwaway daughter

Book Review–Kimchi and Calamari

My last blogs have featured adoption books for young children. I’m pleased to be able to talk about one aimed at the middle-school crowd. This age group is often hard to find books for. Parents want books that introduce adoption themes so that their kids can feel that there are other kids like themselves and also to spark discussion between parent and child. But most books are either children’s picture books, or teen novels dealing with heavy themes like child abandonment and searching, such as Throwaway Daughter. Kimchi and Calamari also touches on these themes, but in a light-hearted way. … Continue reading →

November in the Adoption Blog: Month in Review

I began the blog on All Saints Day with a tribute to certain “Saints” in U.S. Adoption and Pioneers in International Adoption. Then I wrote a tribute to the founder of my daughter’s Korean adoption agency, who has lived an exciting and multifaceted life and is remarkable for his humble concern for children. In honor of National Adoption Month, I wrote two blogs on Top Ten Myths about Adoption. For Part One, click here. For Part Two, click here. Then I wrote a blog about events on National Adoption Day, Saturday November 17. These events included finalizations of thousands of … Continue reading →

Book Review: Throwaway Daughter

I read this book with a mixture of fascination and horror. The author of Throwaway Daughter, Ting-Xing Le, lived through the Cultural Revolution in China and worked as a translator before defecting to the West. (Her life story is told in her memoir A Leaf in the Bitter Wind.) Throwaway Daughter, however, is a novel about a Chinese girl adopted to Canada who goes back to look for her Chinese family. The American Library Association listed it on its Best Books for Young Adults, but I would warn parents against giving this volume to children. Parents should read it first … Continue reading →

What Will They Think I’m Doing to One of Their Kids?

Yesterday I wrote about whether when people see me with my kids, they think of my interactions with them as a reflection on adoption. Sometimes I would like to be a bit less conspicuous. There is another situation which brings on an even more intense feeling of being conspicuous. That is when I am around people from my daughters’ country. There are times when I have sat quite demurely patting my child’s back while she screams and kicks the sidewalk at our city’s central plaza. It took her a full half hour to realize she wasn’t going to get what … Continue reading →