Parents and educators alike have long struggled to understand what meanings race might have for the very young, and for ways to insure that every child grows up with a healthy sense of self. Marguerite Wright handles sensitive issues with consummate clarity, practicality, and hope. Here we have an indispensable guide that will doubtless prove a classic. --Edward Zigler, sterling professor of psychology and director, Yale Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy A child's concept of race is quite different from that of an adult. Young children perceive skin color as magical--even changeable--and unlike adults, are incapable of understanding adult predjudices surrounding race and racism. Just as children learn to walk and talk, they likewise come to understand race in a series of predictable stages. Based on Marguerite A. Wright's research and clinical experience, I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla teaches us that the color-blindness of early childhood can, and must, be taken advantage of in order to guide the positive development of a child's self-esteem. Wright answers some fundamental questions about children and race including: * What do children know and understand about the color of their skin? * When do children understand the concept of race? * Are there warning signs that a child is being adversely affected by racial prejudice? * How can adults avoid instilling in children their own negative perceptions and prejudices? * What can parents do to prepare their children to overcome the racism they are likely to encounter? * How can schools lessen the impact of racism? With wisdom and compassion, I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla spells out how to educate black and biracial children about race, while preserving their innate resilience and optimism--the birthright of all children.

     It’s generally assumed that this diaspora is the result of China’s approach to population control, but there is also the underlying belief that the majority of adoptees are daughters because the One-Child Policy often collides with the traditional preference for a son. While there is some truth to this, it does not tell the full story—a story with deep personal resonance to Kay Ann Johnson, a China scholar and mother to an adopted Chinese daughter.             Johnson spent years talking with the Chinese parents driven to relinquish their daughters during the brutal birth-planning campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, and, with China’s Hidden Children, she paints a startlingly different picture. The decision to give up a daughter, she shows, is not a facile one, but one almost always fraught with grief and dictated by fear. Were it not for the constant threat of punishment for breaching the country’s stringent birth-planning policies, most Chinese parents would have raised their daughters despite the cultural preference for sons. With clear understanding and compassion for the families, Johnson describes their desperate efforts to conceal the birth of second or third daughters from the authorities. As the Chinese government cracked down on those caught concealing an out-of-plan child, strategies for surrendering children changed—from arranging adoptions or sending them to live with rural family to secret placement at carefully chosen doorsteps and, finally, abandonment in public places. In the twenty-first century, China’s so-called abandoned children have increasingly become “stolen” children, as declining fertility rates have left the dwindling number of children available for adoption more vulnerable to child trafficking. In addition, government seizures of locally—but illegally—adopted children and children hidden within their birth families mean that even legal adopters have unknowingly adopted children taken from parents and sent to orphanages.             The image of the “unwanted daughter” remains commonplace in Western conceptions of China. With China’s Hidden Children, Johnson reveals the complex web of love, secrecy, and pain woven in the coerced decision to give one’s child up for adoption and the profound negative impact China’s birth-planning campaigns have on Chinese families.

    I hadn't slept properly for weeks. All of us had been waiting for this moment for months. Our fourth child was soon to arrive ...This is the story of 18-year-old Kartya Wunderle, one of 64 babies flown out of Taiwan in the early 80s. Babies stolen from their mothers or sold by their families and adopted out to unsuspecting overseas parents. At 15, Kartya began to use heroin in an attempt to take away the pain of not knowing who she was and where she came from. Her distraught parents watched their beautiful daughter slowly slip away from them, spiralling towards a tragic and almost inevitable conclusion. Out of desperation and fired by an unconditional love for her daughter, Nola Wunderle resolved to find Kartya's birth mother and change the ending to Kartya's story. An amazing search for one woman in a country of 22 million began. The result was nothing short of miraculous, and made Kartya a national hero in her homeland. Lost Daughter is a moving testament to the power of love and the strength of the human spirit, one that will humble and inspire all who read it.

    Adopted people are diverse individuals with differing points of view, yet have been stigmatized into one type of people by the industry leaders. Even though we come from various backgrounds, we've been stereotyped as if all of us are somehow ungrateful if we don't show enough appreciation, labeled as if having Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) when we don't bond as expected, or too negative when we push for answers. This little book proves that we are an assorted population with varying backgrounds, and we should not be reduced to the label of anti-this or anti-that when we ask questions—questions that make the industry uncomfortable. Rather, we should be given the right to ask questions about our background and even gain access to our adoption documents when we inquire. We have the right to ask questions—even if it makes adoption agencies uncomfortable. We should have the right to know if we have blood-related sisters and brothers, aunts, or uncles. None of us should have to go to our graves without having the opportunity to develop friendships with our next-of-kin—if we so wish. This book, containing excerpts from Janine's "Adoption Books for Adults" collection, is completely biased on the rights of adopted people and void of influence from adoption authorities.

    Small for his age and in his first year of high school, Justin's only friend has become a bully and harasses him at every turn. But Justin has a secret. He feels no pain from the punches and shoves that come his way and, at his mother's request, must pretend to be normal even though he wants to fight back.A mysterious message on his computer sends him in search of knowledge about the legendary Titans. While at the local library, he is confronted by a frightening group of men who follow him and attack his home.Justin must escape, but there seems no way out and leaving his ailing mother behind is something Justin does not want to do. But Justin's mother and a family friend urge him to get to a place of safety; a sanctuary where he may, perhaps, learn more about his strange gift and it's connection with the long-dead Titans.

    Adopted by an American family at age four, Jaclyn goes to her new home with a great burden. Her new family had to leave behind a little boy who had been under her charge at the Chinese orphanage. Jaclyn inspires two families, several agencies, and two governments to cooperate to reunite her with her baby. Everyone who reads this story will believe in the power of love to change the world.

    In this astonishing coming-of-age memoir, collegiate Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Patton relays how she survived her adoptive familys abuse through her determination to be the best student--and human being--she could possibly be.

    As His people harvested their fields, they were instructed to always leave a portion of the crops for those in need.Today, God's heart continues to beat for the poor, the widows, and the fatherless. And as His children, our divine commission remains the same, a directive that's nothing less than the heart of the Christian message.Author Tom Davis encourages us to move beyond words and become Christ to those in need. Join Tom as he shares a journey from around the world and our own backyard as people's lives are changed through the power of compassion. Filled with remarkable stories of hope and mercy, Fields of the Fatherless will inspire you to love "the least of these," and discover the joy found in becoming the hands and feet of Christ.

    -- The New YorkerHeinz Insu Fenkl is the son of a German-American soldier who married a Korean woman when he was stationed near Seoul. In this haunting novel he explores the coming-of-age of an Amerasian in Korea, torn between his mother's world -- haunted by ghosts, fox demons, and the specter of Japanese occupations -- and his father's transplanted America.Young Insu grows up in the chaotic streets of Pupyong, a district in the city of Inchon, the site of General Douglas MacArthur's historic invasion. His mother trafficks in everything, skilled in manipulating the black market to support her family. Insu's arrival at the orderly American school does little to resolve the conflicts between the cultures in which he must live. He may learn the language, but his eyes will never be blue, nor his hair yellow like his father's. And always, there is the memory of his lost half-brother, the baby that his mother sacrificed to marry his father, who refused to raise another man's child.With its ghost stories, folktales, mother-father conflicts, strange joys and violent tragedies, Memories of My Ghost Brother resonates with literary works like Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird, and Gus Lee's China Boy. Evocative and compelling, and introducing a unique new voice in American fiction, Memories of My Ghost Brother provides a rare, beautiful, and sometimes painful glimpse of the creation of one young man's identity.

    From the books and toys to use in play with young children, to simple scripts to help them gracefully react to insensitive comments at school, to advice on guiding older children toward an unflappable sense of self, Does Anybody Else Look Like Me? is the first book to outline for parents how, exactly, to deflect the objectifying and discomforting attention multiracial children are likely to receive. Full of powerful stories and expert counsel, it is sure to become the book that both adoptive and birth parents of different races will look to for understanding as they strive to raise their children in a changing world.

    Her wish finally came true, but only at the misfortune of another. When Asha was six, a Catalan family was in the process of adopting twins but one of the children suddenly fell ill and died. This twist of fate led the family to adopt Asha instead. Leaving a life of poverty behind, Asha was given a second chance.Twenty-one years later, Asha takes a heart-wrenching trip back to India to uncover her native roots. Full of unexpected encounters, this adventure informs and touches Asha beyond her expectations. She visits her old orphanage, speaks with her former caretakers, explores the land that she might not have ever left, and comes to form a more solid identity. Yet one trip is not enough. Eight years later she returns. This time she journeys to the small rural village where she was born. As well as uncovering the details behind her adoption, she finds the only living member of her immediate Indian family: a sister she never knew she had.

    A major  work, filled with astute analysis and moving  truths.

    In fact, he’d give anything not to be the son of Rutherford Morrison, a washed-up rock star and drug addict with delusions of a comeback. Or to no longer be part of a family known most for lost potential, failure, and tragedy. The one true light is his girlfriend, Chapel, but her parents have forbidden their relationship, assuming—like many—that Blade will become just like his father.In reality, the only thing Blade has in common with Rutherford is the music that lives inside them. But not even the songs that flow through Blade’s soul are enough when he’s faced with two unimaginable realities: the threat of losing Chapel forever, and the revelation of a long-held family secret, one that leaves him questioning everything he thought was true. All that remains is a letter and a ticket to Ghana—both of which could bring Blade the freedom and love he’s been searching for, or leave him feeling even more adrift.

    After dropping out of college, she decides to study in Korea and becomes more and more intrigued by her Korean heritage, eventually embarking on a crusade to find her birth mother. Paralleling Sarah's story is that of Kyung-sook, who was forced by difficult circumstances to let her baby be swept away from her immediately after birth, but who has always longed for her lost child.

    After some research, Anais found that the Los Angeles actress Samantha Futerman was born in a South Korean port city called Busan on November 19, 1987 the exact same location and day that Anais was born. This propelled her to make contact via Facebook. One message later, both girls wondered: Could they be twins? Thus begins their remarkable journey to build a relationship as sisters, continents apart. Over Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, they learned that they shared much more than a strikingly similar appearance. Eventually, they traveled to Korea together to discover more about the land of their separation.One of Facebook's Top Ten Stories of 2013, "Separated @ Birth"is a story that spans the world and peels back some of the complex and emotional layers of foreign adoption."