Best of
Adoption

2004

Don't Hit My Mommy!: A Manual for Child-Parent Psychotherapy with Young Witnesses of Family Violence


Alicia F. Lieberman - 2004
    Practitioners from a variety of disciplines will gain an understanding of the impact of violence and will discover concrete intervention strategies to address the consequences of this experience for young children.

Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother's Journey


Karen Salyer McElmurray - 2004
    In a patchwork narrative interwoven with dark memories from her childhood, McElmurray deftly treads where few dare--into a gritty, honest exploration of the loss a birth mother experiences.The year was 1973, a time of social upheaval, even in small-town Kentucky, where McElmurray grew up. More than a story of time and place, however, this is about a girl who, at the age of sixteen, relinquished her son at birth. Twenty-five years would pass before McElmurray began sharing this part of her past with others and actively looking for her son.McElmurray's own troubled upbringing and her quest after a now-fully-grown son are the heart of her story. With unflinching honesty, McElmurray recounts both the painful surrendering and the surprise rediscovery of her son, juxtaposed with her portrayal of her own mother, who could not provide the love she needed. The dramatic result is a story of birthright lost and found--and an exploration of the meaning of motherhood itself.

Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China


Kay Ann Johnson - 2004
    In Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son, Johnson untangles the complex interactions between these social practices and the government's population policies. She also documents the many unintended consequences, including the overcrowding of orphanages that led China to begin international adoptions. Those touched by adoption from China want to know why so many healthy infant girls are in Chinese orphanages. This book provides the most thorough answer to date. Johnson's research overturns stereotypes and challenges the conventional wisdom on abandonment and adoption in modern China. Certainly, as Johnson shows, many Chinese parents feel a great need for a son to carry on the family name and to care for them in their old age. At the same time, the government's strict population policy puts great pressure on parents to limit births. As a result, some parents are able to obtain a son only by resorting to illegal behavior, such as "overquota" births and female infant abandonment. Yet the Chinese today value daughters more highly than ever before. As many of Johnson's respondents put it, "A son and a daughter make a family complete." How can these seemingly contradictory trends--the widespread desire for a daughter as well as a son, and the revival of female infant abandonment--be happening in the same place at the same time? Johnson looks at abandonment together with two other practices: population planning and adoption. In doing so, she reveals all three in a new light. Johnson shows us that a rapidly changing culture in late twentieth-century China hastened a positive revaluation of daughters, while new policies limiting births undercut girls' improving status in the family. Those policies also revived and exacerbated one of the worst aspects of traditional patriarchal practices: the abandonment of female infants. Yet Chinese parents are not literally forced to abandon female infants in order to have a son. While birth-planning enforcement can be coercive, parents who abandon are rarely prosecuted. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Chinese parents informally adopt female foundlings and raise them as their own. Ironically, as Johnson shows, in some places adoptive parents are more likely than abandoning parents to incur fines and discrimination. In addressing all these issues, Johnson brings the skills of a China specialist who has spent over a decade researching her subject. She also brings the concerns of an adoptive parent who hopes that this book might help others find answers to the question, What can we tell our children about why they were abandoned and why they were available for international adoption?

Shaoey and Dot: Bug Meets Bundle


Mary Beth Chapman - 2004
    Age Range: 4 - 7 yearsSeries: Shaoey & DotHardcover: 32 pagesPublisher: Thomas Nelson (October 10, 2004)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1400304822ISBN-13: 978-1400304820 Product Dimensions: 0.3 x 11.6 x 9.1 inches Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces

Relax Kids: The Wishing Star 52 Magical Meditations for Children, Ages 5+


Marneta Viegas - 2004
    It is designed to counteract some of the tensions with which we are familiar at the end of a busy day and offers parents and children some quality time to relax and share.

Finding the Right Spot: When Kids Can't Live with Their Parents


Janice Levy - 2004
    She experiences the emotional ups and downs of living in an unfamiliar home and being separated from her mother.

When I Met You: A Story of Russian Adoption


Adrienne Ehlert Bashista - 2004
    From scenes in the orphanage to the child’s Russian birthmother, this is one of the first children’s picture books to chronicle the special background of children adopted from Russia. Delicate watercolor illustrations perfectly compliment this poetic and heartfelt text. When I Met You is a celebration of the joy that adopting a child brings to a family.

Sam's Sister


Juliet C. Bond - 2004
    Five-year-old Rosa becomes a big sister to a baby boy for whom their mother plans an open adoption because she cannot properly care for another child.

Families Are Forever


Craig Shemin - 2004
    Lighthearted and touching, this color-bursting tale is narrated by Rain, a six-year-old Chinese-American adopted girl and her beloved stuffed hippo, who is a family legacy. Through Rain, we learn that: "A family is special and each one is different. And some sisters and brothers may not look like their fathers and mothers. But that doesn't matter; what does matter is this: families are forever." While the story's main character, Rain, is adopted, Families isn't a story only about adoption. It is about observing Rain as she discovers that despite differing physical characteristics, as human beings we are more similar than we are different. This key message of the book offers readers ways to begin the important early conversations about diversity-in race, in family formation and other areas of life. Our children are growing up in a diverse society and are faced with a large array of people and choices. As they go out into this world, they are asking tough questions. Rain's adventures speak directly to these challenges that our children face.

The Catalpa Tree


Denyse Devlin - 2004
    In the seven years that follow, Jude struggles with being alone in the world and Oliver struggles with caring for a beloved child who is becoming a woman.

Why I Chose You


Gregory E. Lang - 2004
    Lang captures the essence of the dynamic relationships among adoptive families. These are families with so much love to share whom are desperate to have and/or help children. From hugs and kisses, to witnessing "firsts" together, "Why I Chose You" depicts all of the reasons why each child is uniquely special to his or her adoptive parent(s). Raising a child is not a right, but a gift. It matters not from where the gift comes, but simply that it is received. Gone are the days in which adoption was taboo. It is reason for rejoicing, sharing, and celebrating. No guilt and no second guesses can creep into your heart once it is so completely filled to bursting with love. It is that love that is celebrated within the pages of "Why I Chose You," Gregory E. Lang has compiled dozens of reasons for adoption as well as capturing the adoration, affection, and mutual gratification that is received from both the parent and child. For there is no greater place than a home filled with love, and no greater gift than the smile of a happy and contented child who knows he or she is loved.

Blue-Eyed Son


Nicky Campbell - 2004
    His father – an ex-army man – and his mother helped him to a good school and a good university. Nicky rarely thought of his birth parents, until a combination of an imploding marriage and a chance meeting with a private detective led him to track his mother down. Nicky Campbell brilliantly recalls their reunion and tentative steps towards a relationship, evoking all the complex and deep-seated emotions that being reunited elicited in each of them. But as they talked it became clear that there was more to Nicky’s background than he expected. . . In this emotionally gripping and refreshingly honest memoir, Nicky Campbell describes the many sides of a family’s dark history, and how it feels to find out where you come from.

Many Lives Intertwined: A Memoir


Hyun Sook Han - 2004
    Instead, I whispered to them: "I will come back and help you. Somehow, I will find a way to help you."Hyun Sook Han was born in Korea during a time when the Japanese occupied her country, prior to World War II. She was still only a child when the Korean War broke out and she had to flee Seoul with her family, hurrying south on foot with her baby sister on her back. In the horror of that experience, passing thousands of abandoned and dead children, she made a promise that she would come back to them as soon as she could. Somehow, she would find a way to help.In the chaos and poverty of post-war Korea, Hyun Sook Han started on her path to fulfill that promise. She resisted family pressure to become a lawyer and politician, and instead began her life-long career as a social worker, with the welfare of children as her highest priority.In Many Lives Intertwined, Hyun Sook Han related the very distinct lives she has led, and how they've all come together in one amazing whole. Daughter, student, refugee, wife, emigrant, social worker, mother, Korean, American, and adoption pioneer. Those who know only one of her lives will be fascinated to read about the others. Anyone interested in Korea or international adoption will find her story engrossing.Her story moves from her happy childhood with loving parents, to the brutality and turmoil of the Korean War and its aftermath. She tells of her school days, her college career, and how she met and married the man with whom she would spend her life. Mrs. Han relates not only the difficult birth of her daughter, but how she and her husband openly adopted a son at a time when families tried to keep adoptions secret. We also get wonderful insights into joys and sorrows of leaving one's native country for a new one, as she and her family settled into an American way of life.Her stellar social work career began in 1964, after graduation in 1962 from Ewha University, Korea's renowned private women's university. Mrs. Han worked for 11 years in Korea's newly-forming child welfare field to support children and birth parents who needed to consider adoption.In 1975, Mrs. Han joined the Children's Home of Minnesota staff, and teamed with other CHSM staff to expand Korean adoption in Minnesota and provide a wealth of service experiences for families with children of Korean descent. Mrs. Han was the bridge that allowed CHSM to create direct working relationships with Korean child welfare agencies, the Korean government, and other agencies.But more than anything else, Mrs. Han is beloved for all the families she helped make, finding well over a thousand families who wanted children, and matching them to children who needed a loving family. She has given here entire energy, time, and effort for children who need homes, for 40 years of her life, and has touched each of those hearts.