a * denotes appropriate for young children
Tapestry Books
A great source for adoption books and resources.
A Child’s Journey Through Placement
Vera, M.D. Fahlberg
This book provides the foundations, the resources, and the tools which will help professionals, parents (birth, foster, adoptive), and others who care, in supporting children for whom the journey through out-ofhome care becomes part of the road to adulthood. This easy to read book on a complex topic contains the bulk of the material Dr. Fahlberg presented in her attachment-focused trainings for consumers and professionals throughout the world.
Adopting the Hurt Child: Hope for Families with Special-Needs Kids
Keck, Gregory C. & Regina M. Kupecky
Adopting the Hurt Child addresses the frustrations, heartache, and hope surrounding the adoptions of special-needs kids. Integrating social, psychological, and sociopolitical issues, Adopting the Hurt Child explains how trauma and interruptions affect these children's normal development and often severely undermine their capacity to function in a loving family and in society.
Jewett, Claudia L.
A first-rate examination of the older-child adoption process which reckons with the feelings and reactions of everyone involved.-new and foster parents, adoptive and biological children, and the intermediating social workers. Jewett characterizes the entire sequence from the viewpoint of each participant without neglecting the red-tape snafus that can delay or distress, and uses five composite cases to illumine the more common stumbling blocks and dividends.
Adopting on Your Own: The Complete Guide to Adopting as a Single Parent
Varon, Lee
Addresses the questions and concerns of prospective single parents.
After Adoption: The Needs of Adopted Youth
Howard, Jeanne A. & Susan Livingston Smith
Examines the experiences of more than 1,000 adoptive families to find out how they are functioning years after the adoption. It analyzes the risk and resiliency factors associated with adjustment and examines differences in adoptions by kin, foster parents, and those matched with children for the purpose of adoption.
Adoption Digest: Stories of Joy, Loss, and the Journey
O’Hanlon, Tim & Rita Laws
Adoption is a life-long process, forever changing those it touches. The personal and intensely emotional stories related in this book illustrate the many aspects of adopting--the positive and the negative. The narratives include the experiences of children of all ages, their families, and the dedicated professionals who work in the adoption field, supporting them through every stage of their incredible journey.
Adoption Parenting: Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections
Macrae, Sheena ed,
Over 100 contributors from around the world share their wealth of information to help adoptive families.
Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents
Gray, Deborah D.
Along with technical explanations of challenges such as self-esteem, childhood grief, and limit testing, the book includes a tremendous number of personal vignettes illustrating attachment-related situations. Parents who are convinced that only their child has ever behaved a certain way are sure to take comfort in these stories; not only do they include kids from all backgrounds and age groups, but each has an ultimately happy ending.
Beating the Adoption Game
Martin, Cynthia D.
Cynthia D. Martin, an adoption counselor, explains the details of agency adoptions and gives recommendations not only for beating the system but for improving it.
Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self
Brodzinsky, David
This groundbreaking book uses the poignant, powerful voices of adoptees and adoptive parents to explore the experience of adoption and its lifelong effects. A major work, filled with astute analysis and moving truths.
Beneath the Mask-Understanding Adopted Teens
Debbie Riley, M.S. with John Meeks, M.D. 2005
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Adoption
Adamec, Chris
This comprehensive, compassionate guide teaches readers what to expect every step of the way, from deciding whether or not they are ready to adopt a child, to choosing an adoption agency, to meeting with birthparents. The book also discusses how to arrange international adoptions and adoptions for nontraditional families (such as single parents and older parents).
* Did My First Mother Love Me?
Miller, Kathryn Ann and Jami Moffett
(Kindergarten-Grade 3) A book that helps a family consider an important, difficult question. Even though Morgan knows all about her adoption, the preschooler sometimes wonders about her "other mother." When she asks, "Did my first mother love me?" her mother reads the letter her birthmother wrote to her. It relates the woman's wishes to be the one to give her child a safe and happy home, but acknowledges sadly that this
is not possible. This slim volume will be of value to adoptive parents, especially those fortunate enough to have letters from a birthmother.
Discipline with Love and Logic
Fay, Jim
Three Experts in child development offer knowledge and insight into behavior management.
John McCutcheon and Julie Paschkis
Inspired by a friend's tradition, noted children's singer/songwriter McCutcheon created this original song for those who might like to mark a special anniversary in their family's life/adoption day. His thoughtful lyrics (the score is included, of course) emphasize the joy and wonder of the event
Healing Power of Family: Overview of Life with Disturbed Foster/Adoptive Child
Delaney, Richard
The Healing Power of the Family offers a non-technical approach to understanding and treating disturbed foster and adopted children. Written in Dr. Delaney's straightforward and sometimes humorous style, this book puts "front-line" strategies in the hands of the reader.
Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss
Jewett-Jarratt, Claudia
Joanna Cole and Maxie Chambliss
Ages 4-7 Sam has a joyful story to tell, one completely her own, yet common to millions of families – the story of how she was adopted. Most of all, it's a story about love. And in the end, Sam's story comes full circle, inviting young readers to share stories of how they were adopted.
Herbert, Stefon
A sweet story written by a child who was adopted from the foster care system. He shares his fears about leaving his foster home to move in with a new adoptive family. Very realistic and honest, "I Miss My Foster Parents" may help other children feel that they are not alone in missing their foster parents and depicts the relationship continuing with phone calls, cards, and visits.
* I’d Rather Be With a Real Mom Who Loves Me
Gordon, Michael
A short book for younger children dealing with separation from their families. A good book to read to children placed in foster care, making it clear that many of the thoughts and feelings they are likely to experience are normal rather than odd or shameful
Never, Never, Never Will She Stop Loving You
Jolene Durrant and Steve Allred
Written by an adoptive parent, this true story lovingly connects birth mom and child while stressing the importance of the adoptive parents.
No Such Thing as a Bad Kid
Applestein, Charlie
Understanding and responding to the challenging behaviors of troubled children and teens.
Parenting Teens with Love and Logic
Fay, Jim and Cline, Foster
Preparing adolescents for responsible adulthood
Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility
Fay, Jim and Cline, Foster
Raise kids who are self-confident and motivated
Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child
Verrier, Nancy
A book that will revolutionize the way people think about adoption. Covering pre- and perinatal psychology, attachment, bonding and loss, it clarifies the effect of separation from the natural parents on adopted children, and gives those children validation for their feelings as well as explanations for the way they behave.
Raising Adopted Children: Practical Advice for Every Adoptive Parent
Melina, Lois
In this completely revised and updated edition of Raising Adopted Children, Lois Melina, editor of Adopted Children newsletter and the mother of two children by adoption, draws on the latest research in psychology, sociology, and medicine to guide parents through all stages of their child's development.
Real Parents, Real Children
Van Gulden, Holly and Bartels-Rabb, Lisa M.
Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child
MacKenzie, Robert
Eliminating conflict by establishing clear, firm and respectful boundaries.
Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child
Betsy Keefer, Jayne E. Schooler
"Do I have to tell my adopted child the truth?" This is a question that faces every adoptive parent. Filling a much-needed gap in the adoption literature regarding communication with adopted children, Telling the Truth to Your Adopted-Foster Child provides parents with the important knowledge of why adopted children need to know the truth about their past. The authors offer practical guidelines and tools that parents can use in communicating with their children the circumstances of their past. This book presents the developmental stages of how children understand adoption and what needs to be said to a child age appropriately. The authors suggest how to share with children the painful and difficult issues regarding their circumstances, birth family, and background. The goal is to provide a gateway into life as emotionally and psychologically healthy adults, with solid foundations for identity and self-esteem.
Wadia-Ells, Susan
These personal essays and stories are informed by the contemporary adoption movement and raise timely issues that illustrate its complexity, among them: open and closed adoption, cross-cultural adoption, the birth record debate, the experience of biracial adoptees, adoption by lesbian couples, and the search for identity. Featuring the work of well-known writers and activists, The Adoption Reader is a helpful, hopeful and vital collection about growth and self-understanding and a must-read book for anyone who has been touched by the adoption experience.
Karyn Purvis, David R. Cross, Wendy Lyons Sunshine
The adoption of a child is always a joyous moment in the life of a family. Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family--and addressing their special needs--requires care, consideration, and compassion.
Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, The Connected Child will help you:
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Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child
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Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders
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Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened
The Explosive Child
Green, Ross
A new approach for understanding and parenting easily frustrated and chronically inflexible children.
Maguire Pavao, Joyce
Joyce Maguire Pavao uses her thirty years of experience as a family and adoption therapist to explain to adoptive parents, birthparents, adult adopted people, and extended family, as well as to those who work with children professionally the developmental stages and challenges one can expect in the life of the adopted person.
Schooler, Jayne
Adoptive families deal with a special dynamic that affects parents, adopted children, and birth children. And they face unique issues of attachment, adjustment, and identity. Creating a nurturing family environment and being prepared for typical crisis points are critical in forging a healthy, lasting family relationship. This book will give hope and direction to those considering adoption and to those desiring to improve and develop the adoptive family relationship at any stage.
To Love a Child: Ways to Share Your Life with Children
Marianne Takas and Edward Warner
A wonderful exploration of alternative ways to add children to one's own life and make a difference in theirs. The only title to realistically explore fostering, big brothering, and other non-permanent nurturing relationships as viable alternatives.
* Together Forever – A Coloring Book Story
Barris, Sara
This coloring book was designed to provide children with a natural and comfortable opportunity to learn about adoption.
Toddler Adoption
Hopkins-Best, Mary
This is a book about the journey of building family through adoption of a child between the ages of one and three. The journey begins long before the child arrives, and continues indefinitely. This book explores the decision to adopt, the preparation for adopting and the adjustment to adoption of a toddler.... The author discusses both the exquisite joys of toddler adoption and challenges that the majority of families will probably encounter. This is a "can do" book that is intended to encourage toddler adoption for parents who are stable, mature and ready for the challenge and journey of their life!
Treating Esplosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach
Green, Ross and Albon, Stuart
Provides a detailed framework for effective, individualized intervention with highly aoppositional children and their families.
Troubled Transplants: Strategies for Helping Disturbed Foster and Adopted Children
Richard J., Ph.D. Delaney and Frank R. Kunstal
Presents practical-if unconventional-treatment strategies for addressing the puzzling, exhausting problems of today's foster and adoptive children.
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
Eldridge, Sherrie
With warmth and candor, Sherrie Eldridge reveals the twenty complex emotional issues you must understand to nurture the child you love--that he must grieve his loss now if he is to receive love fully in the future--that she needs honest information about her birth family no matter how painful the details may be--and that although he may choose to search for his birth family, he will always rely on you to be his parents.
20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed
Eldridge, Sherrie
Understanding the unique needs to your adopted child and becoming the best parent you can be.
Why Didn’t She Keep Me? Answers to Questions that Every Adopted Child Asks
Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas
Over a span of five years, sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas talked in-depth with 162 lowincome single moms like Millie to learn how they think about marriage and family. Promises I Can Keep offers an intimate look at what marriage and motherhood mean to these women and provides the most extensive on-the-ground study to date of why they put children before marriage despite the daunting challenges they know lie ahead.
Why Was I Adopted?
Carole Livingston and Arthur Robins
Why Was I Adopted will help smooth over many an awkward moment between the adopted child and adoptive parent. Written after careful research and designed with tender affection, it covers a wide variety of questions frequently asked about adoption.
* Zachary’s New Home – A Story for Foster and Adopted Children
Geraldine M. Blomquist, Paul B. Blomquist, and Margo Lemieux
The adventures of Zachary the kitten, who is taken from his mother's house when his mother is unable to take care of him. Eventually he is adopted by a family of geese. Zachary experiences the true-to-life feelings of shame, rebelliousness, and hurt, and his adoptive parents struggle with their own feelings during Zachary's tougher times, until Zachary finally finds a place he can call home. The poignant story is brought
to life by the detailed, evocative drawings.
Books on Adoption Topics
