Center For Family Connections

Topics:
I. Adoption
II. The Adopted Adult
III. Adoptee Reunions
IV. Open Adoption
V. Birthparents
VI. Prenatal
VII. Younger Children & Adoption
VIII. Older Children & Adoption
IX. Foster Care
X. Adoption-How to:
XI. Adoptive Parenting
XII. International Adoption Parenting
XIII. Transracial Adoption
XIV. Infertility and its Alternatives
XV. Attachment Disorder
Additional List from Pact, An Adoption Alliance

I. Adoption

The Family of Adoption
Joyce Maguire Pavao
A sensitive, sometimes poignant, always wise exploration of the concerns, joys, problems, and needs of adopted people, adoptive parents, birth parents, and their families.

Adoption Triangle
Arthur Soroskys, Annette Baran, M.S.W. & Reuben Pannor, M.S.W.
A factual, well-rounded book that leads to an understanding of adoption as a life-long process for adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents.

Pandora's Hope: Poems & Prose About Being Adopted
Penny Callan Partridge
The poetry and prose in Pandora's Hope is both moving and, at times, even humorous.

A Ghost At Heart's Edge
Susan Ito & Tina Cervin (ed.)
A literary anthology of adoption containing over 50 stories and poems from all points of view of the adoption triad; the works are universal in their depiction of human longing for identity and family.

II. The Adopted Adult

Lost & Found
Betty Jean Lifton
The adoption experience primarily from the adopted adult's viewpoint. Case studies.

Journey of the Adopted Self
Betty Jean Lifton
This book draws on a study of adult adopted people as well as the author's personal experiences to illuminate how adopted people form a sense of self. The search for biological and historical roots can be a journey towards wholeness.

Primal Wound
Nancy Vermeer
Eye-opening revelations of how separation at birth impacts adopted people lifelong.

III. Adoptee Reunions

Adoption Reunions
Michelle McColm
A comprehensive book about reunions that presents a sensitive and compassionate guide for those involved in all phases of the reunion process.

Giving Away
Simone Jan L. Waldron
This memoir is one woman's adoption story and she subsequent reunion with her 11 year-old child. This book is an eloquent, literate, first-person account of a mother's relinquishment of her baby and their turbulent years later.

Synchronicity & Reunion
LaVonne Harper Stiffler
A fascinating exploration of surprising coincidences in the union/loss/reunion stories of families separated by adoption.

Birth Bond: Reunions Between Birthparents & Adoptees - What are the long-term outcomes?
Judith S. Gediman & Linda P. Brown
In this informative and moving account, the reader discovers the impact of reunions on the lives of all members of the adoption triangle.

Birthright
Jean Strauss
The guide to search & reunion for adoptees, birthparents, & adoptive parents. Brimming with important reference sources & dozens of true-life stories.

A Man & His Mother
Tim Green
This is Tim Green's story of his faithful reunion with his birth mother and how this meeting engendered in both their lives.

Shadow Train-A Journey Between Relinquishment and Reunion
Patricia Taylor
A superb novel-written autobiography of a therapist/birthmother's struggle with the "family secret" and her own inability to "get on with life" until the unfinished business in her life was resolved.

Outer Search, Inner Journey
Peter Dodds
An orphan & adoptee's quest. The author, Peter Dodds, was adopted abroad. This book is a search for roots and the parallel inner journey toward healing. It is about the loss of family & heritage, rejection & abandonment, shame, guilt, rage & betrayal.

IV. Open Adoption

Children of Open Adoption
Kathleen Silber & Patricia Martinez Dorner
Authors examine scores of open adoptions from infancy to adolescence. Topics include understanding adoption, developing relationships, families with open and closed adoptions, etc.

Dear Birthmother, Thank You For Our Baby
Kathleen Silber & Phyllis Speedlin
This book provides specific and practical suggestions about beginning and maintaining an open adoption.

The Spirit of Open Adoption
James L. Gritter
A candid, intensely personal, highly readable account of the experiences of one agency that switched from closed to open adoptions.

How to Open An Adoption: A Guide for Parents and Birthparents of Minors
Patricia Martinez Dorner
Covers the benefits of opening adoptions while the children are still minors, issues surrounding open adoption requests, getting professional assistance, etc.

The Open Adoption Experience
Lois Ruskai Melina & Sharon Kaplan Roszia
An authoritative and reassuring guide to the issues and concerns of adoptive and birth families through all stages of the open adoption relationship.

To Prison With Love
Sandy Musser
This book is not only Sandy Musser's true story of her indictment nut is part of a historical record of the adoption reform movement. Most importantly it represents a turning point in the struggle to open adoption records.

V. Birthparents

The Other Mother
Carol Schaefer
A book in which every birth mother can find herself & her experience from pregnancy through search & reunion. For all sides of the triangle.

Wake Up Little Susie
Rickie Solinger
Ever wonder why birthmothers are angry? This expose & horror story second to none, and all true! A Must Read.

May the Circle Be Unbroken
Lynn Franklin & Elizabeth Ferber
An intimate journey into the heart of Adoption. Through this Birthmom's journey the triad members will feel and bring all of us into a sense of community with each other.

Birthmothers: Woman Who Have Relinquished Babies For Adoption Tell Their Stories
Merry Bloc Jones
Seventy women share experiences of giving birth to a baby and placing that child for adoption Each chapter presents a different issue such as discovery of pregnancy, the birth, relinquishment, raising other children.

Out of the Shadows
Mary Mason Martin
Men who were interviewed reveal a wide range of adjustment to being a father by biology, not by role. Some know their children through open adoptions; a few have been reunited with their now-grown children, while others have no contact with either the birthmother or their children. Despite widely differing circumstances, some common threads weave through the birthfather experience.

Dear Birthfather
Randolph W. Severson, Ph.D.
Gives teenage fathers the information and support they need to make the appropriate decisions during a difficult time.

A Birthparent's Book of Memories
Brenda Romanchik
A memory book suitable for either birthmothers or birthfathers with room to recount memorable moments with the child as he or she grows.

Birthmother Trauma
Heather Carlini
A counseling guide for birthmothers. This book offers a 7-stage recovery program to help birthmothers lessen the emotional pain that can last for years following the relinquishment of a child of adoption.

I Would Have Searched For Ever
Sandy Musser
A unique book that will stir your deepest feelings. It is both an intensely personal story of one mother's search and a study of the important issues surrounding adoption in our society.

VI. Prenatal

Secret Life of The Unborn Child
Thomas Verney
What baby hears & senses in the last trimester of pregnancy stays with him/her life. The only time we ever 'bond?'

VII. Younger Children & Adoption

This Is Me! Memories To Gather and Keep
A memory book with a padded binder and 37 removable pages to tailor the book to your child's unique history.

Mr. Rogers -- Let's Talk About It: Adoption
Fred Rogers
Mister Rogers confronts, with sensitivity and insight, the questions children have about being adopted. He describes the many ways that children feel close to their families -- celebrating special occasions, doing everyday activities, and spending quiet moments together.

Lucy's Feet
Stephanie Stein
The perfect book to share with children so that they realize that it is all right to have mixed feelings about adoption and their relationship to their siblings.

Why Was I Adopted? The Facts of Adoption with Love and Illustrations
Carole Livingston
This humorous look at adoption uses informal language and pictures to give a basic explanation of adoption, encourages children to ask questions of their parents, and is reassuring about the permanence of adoption.

Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born
Jamie Lee Curtis
In asking her parents to Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born, a young girl shows that this is a cherished tale that she knows by heart.

Horace
Holly Keller
Horace, a spotted cat in a family of striped cats, realizes that being a family has nothing to do with the pattern (or the color, for humans) of your skin.

Chinese Eyes
Marjorie A. Waybill
In this loving book, a first grader encounters prejudice because she is Korean.

A Mother For Choco
Keiko Kasza
Mrs. Bear doesn't look like Choco, but she does hug, kiss, sing and dance with him. Together they realize that she is the perfect Mother For Choco.

Mommy Far, Mommy Near
Carol Antoinette Peacock
The story reassures children about their adoption from China.

VIII. Older Children & Adoption

How It Feels To Be Adopted
Jill Krementz
Nineteen youngsters present both the good and the bad sides about being adopted from an adolescent point of view.

A Child's Journey Through Placement
Vera I. Fahlberg, M.D.
Provides the foundation, resources, and tools to help professional and parents support these children, victims of broken attachments, on their way to adulthood.

Helping Children Cope With Separation And Loss
Claudia L. Jewett-Jarratt
Contains compassionate, step-by-step guidance for any concerned adult who wants to help a child talk about, cope with, and recover from a loss.

IX. Foster Care

Zachary's New Home: A Story for Foster and Adopted Children
Geraldine M. Blomquist, M.S.W. & Paul B. Blomquist
Focuses on a little kitten who doesn't understand why he has to move from his first family to a foster family and then to an adoptive family.

Billy's New Home: For Foster Children Everywhere
Valerie Busic
Although eight-year old Billy's mom could no longer take care of him, he knows that his mom is glad that he's living with a nice family until she can take care of him.

X. Adoption-How to:

Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft
Mary Hopkins Best, Ed. D.
Covers all aspects of adopting and parenting these young children.

Adopting The Older Child
Claudia L. Jewett
Practical, caring advice, describing a child's transition from the honeymoon period through the testing phase and on to the full integration into a family.

Adoption and Financial Assistance: Tools for Navigating the Bureaucracy
Rita Laws & Tim O'Hanlon
Shows how to navigate the adoption assistance process, negotiate a contract, and plan effective administrative hearings and subsidy appeals.

XI. Adoptive Parenting

The Long Awaited Stork: A Guide to Parenting After Infertility
Ellen Sarasohn Glazer
This book has two sections. The first deals with the effect of parents' infertility as their children grow. The second covers alternative methods to becoming a parent, including three chapters on adoption.

Raising Adoptive Children
Lois Ruskai Melina
A parent's guide to rearing children in an adoptive family that examines the child's physical, emotional, and psychological development at every age.

Real Parents, Real Children: Parenting the Adopted Child
Holly van Gulden & Lisa M. Bartels-Rabb
A wealth of information offering insight into how adopted children commonly think and feel about being adopted.

Talking with Young Children About Adoption
Mary Watkins, Ph.D. & Susan Fisher, M.D.
Provides wonderful insights into the process of how, when, and what to say when talking to children about adoption.

Creating Ceremonies
Cheryl A. Liberian, Ph.D. & Rhea K. Buffered, LICSW
Covers the complete spectrum of adoption life-cycle phases, from pre-adoption to moving in, from adjustment to reinforcement and beyond.

Troubled Transplants
Richard J. Delaney, Ph.D. & Frank R. Kunstal, Ed. D.
Presents insights and practical --if unconventional--treatment strategies for addressing the puzzling and exhausting problems sometimes seen in foster and adopted children.

XII. International Adoption Parenting

I Wish For You A Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean Birth Mothers of Ae Ron Won to their Children
Sara Dorow (ed.)
A collection of letters written while the birth mothers were staying at a maternity home, they express the mothers' sorrow, guilt, and regret, but also their best wishes for their children and the adoptive parents.

Voices From Another Place
Susan Soon-Ku Cox (ed.)
Fiction, memoir, poetry and art from the first generation of Korean adoptees who are now grown to adulthood, but never completely removed from their roots in Korea.

XIII. Transracial Adoption

Of Many Colors: Portraits Of Multiracial Families
Peggy Gillespie
Tells the stories of thirty-nine families who have bridged the racial divide through adoption or interracial marriage. Parents and children speak candidly about their lives, their relationships, and the ways in which they have dealt with issues of race.

Transracial Adoption And Foster Care: Practice Issues for Professional
Joseph Crumbley
The goal of this book is to provide professionals, agencies, and organizations with the information they need to better serve the needs of transracial families.

An Insider's Guide to Transracial Adoption
Gail Steinberg & Beth Hall
Offers concrete strategies for dealing with the challenges of multiracial family life.

XIV. Infertility and its Alternatives

Mommy, Did I Grow In Your Tummy? Where Some Babies Come From
Elaine Gordon, Ph.D.
This book is written for children so that they might better understand and respect the increasingly different ways that families can grow and come to be.

Let Me Explain: A Story About Donor Insemination
Jane T. Schnitter
In a completely matter-of fact tone, the main character of this book, a young girl, explains the basics of being conceived via donor insemination.

Lethal Secrets: The Psychology of Donor Insemination
Annette Baran, M.S.W. & Reuben Pannor, M.S.W.
Offers sound advice for couples on why and how to tell their children about their origins, while proposing greater openness and honesty in the donor insemination process.

XV. Attachment Disorder

Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children
Daniel Hughes
Realistically portrays the experiences of poorly attached children and offers practical strategies for helping them overcome their difficulties.

(Book synopses borrowed from the Adoption Book Catalog and The Adoption Connection's Suggested Reading List.)

The following list is from Pact, An Adoption Alliance, 3450 Sacramento, Suite 239; San Francisco, CA 94118.

Racial Issues in Adoption