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Adoptive Parenting (& books for family members)
Beyond Good Intentions: A Mother Reflects on Raising Internationally Adopted Children
By Cheri Register
Beyond Good Intentions illustrates the compromises needed to raise a healthy internationally adopted child who is a
different race and/or has a different cultural heritage than their family. Register writes the books in a series of essays
based on ten "pitfalls" of adoptive parenting from the point of views of an adoptive parent of adult children and adult adoptees.
She uses examples to illustrate the extremes of adoptive parenting. The ten topics range from making your child exotic,
which points out the negative of making the child's race and culture central to the family, to ignoring your child's race
and ethnic heritage to hovering over your "troubled child" to ignoring your child's past. As with any book on parenting,
Beyond Good Intentions shows parents, family members, and friends why balancing these issues is key to raising a child
who is proud of her heritage and past without being made an outcast by it.
I highly recommend this book to parents who have or are about to adopt internationally and to extended families of internationally
adopted children. Register also wrote Are Those Kids Yours? in the 1980s which I have also read and would recommend.
Becoming a Family: Promoting Healthy Attachments with Your Adopted Child
Lark Eshleman, Ph. D.
Excellent book on attachment in adoption with a particular focus on international adoption. This book gives adoptive families
specific ways they can foster healthy attachment from the beginning. Becoming a Family isn't dry and depressing like
the other attachment books I have read.
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
By Sherrie Eldridge
I liked this book, but I know many people who did not. It tells adoptive families the struggles adoptees can go through from
the perspective of the child. Some of it is more common sense than anything. It is not intended to be the primary adoptive
parenting book in any family. This book is very easy to find. I would recommend picking up a copy at your library and reading
it.
Chinese Adoption
The Lost Daughters of China
By Karen Evans
Wonderful book that explores why Chinese girls are abandoned and what their lives are like as orphans. I especially liked
how she used both personal stories and research to explain the issues. I invite every person who will be a part of my child's
life to read this book.
Sisters Redeem Their Grumpy Dad: Stories of Melanie, Kristen and Fatherhood at 50
By Terry Garlock
This book is written in short, humorous essays about fatherhood and focuses particularly on his life as a first time father
after the age of 50. It is very funny, but also mixes in information about his daughters' adoptions from China. At the end
of the book, he writes about what he wants his daughters to know about life just in case he is not around to teach them.
He also shares with the readers the PowerPoint slides that he uses to tell his daughter her adoption story. I love this variation
on a lifebook.
Mei Mei: Portraits From A Chinese Orphanage
by Richard Bowen (a Half the Sky Foundation book)
This is a book of 100 photographs of girls in a variety of orphanages with very few infants. He did not pose the children
or tell them if they should smile or not. The result is a collection of pictures that both fill me with hope and makes me
melancholy. To me, this is more of a book to purchase for my child to look at later than for me to better understand orphans
in China.
Love’s Journey: A Collage of the China Adoption Experience
a Love Without Boundaries book
Love’s Journey is filled with poems, essays, pictures, and artwork that fulfill one of thirteen different themes. I
know that no matter what I am feeling in this lengthy, emotional process that I can find something in this collection that
indicates I am not the only one. Overall, I find this book to be very hopeful and encouraging while honoring the losses that
can occur. I know this is a book that I will share will with my child when she starts asking about the adoption process itself.
Chinese History & Culture
1421: The Year China Discovered America
by Gavin Menzies
...coming soon...I'm still reading it...That's a sign that it is not a book that keeps my interest. ;-)
Fiction
Somebody's Daughter: A Novel
By Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Somebody's Daughter is a fictional look at a Korean adoptee who ends up in Korea trying to find out about her birth
parents. The narration is shared between Sarah and her birth mother. Sarah doesn't go to Korea to look for her birth parents;
in fact, she ends up in Korea without knowing why she went there. Sarah has to come to terms with her parents lies about
the death of her parents and how she came to the orphanage. She is unprepared for Korea as her parents never allowed her
or anyone around her to talk about Korea or Sarah's Korean heritage. This book is often painful to read. The readers sees
that Sarah is a confused young adult who feels she has no where to turn and no one to trust. Her parents made many mistakes
in Sarah's eyes which makes this book especially upsetting to adoptive parents. If you want to feel you are the perfect parent,
this is not the book for you. If you want to better understand the thoughts and feelings of a young woman who is returning
to her birth country, I would highly recommend this book. The author's research makes this book rich. She not only understands
the adoptee point of view, but she also spent a year in Korea interviewing mothers who gave up their children to add depth
to her book. She succeeded.
The Good Earth
By Pearl Buck
1932 Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Quick, captivating read. The Good Earth offers a picture of rural Chinese life
while the last emperor reined and changes begin occurring rapidly. It explores the lives of a farmer and his wife as they
grow from newlyweds to grandparents. I highly recommend this book.
Children's Books (Fiction and Non-fiction)
We Adopted You, Benjamin Koo
By Linda Walvoord Girard, Illustrated by Linda Shute
This was another library book sale find. Thankfully, I had heard about this book before the sale.
We Adopted You is about a boy adopted from Korea as a baby. He narrates the story and bring up several issues I haven’t
seen treated in children’s books this well including infant abandonment, the possibility of never knowing his birth
parents, and the stupid things strangers can say about your family looking different. Even though his story is not exactly
like a typical Chinese adoption story, I feel that this book could be used for a great discussion about the similarities and
differences. If nothing else, this book is a great jumping point for discussing key issues with your internationally adopted
child including racism and the realization that you don’t look like your parents. The book even includes a story line
about Benjamin’s adopted sister from Brazil and celebrating both Korean and Brazilian holidays. For a picture book
with about thirty pages, the author packs a lot in without losing anything. I would be thrilled to find a book of this quality
about Chinese adoption.
Liang and the Magic Paintbrush
By Demi
Based on a Chinese folktale, Liang and the Magic Paintbrush tells the story of a little boy who dreams of painting
but cannot afford a paintbrush. One day he comes by a magic paintbrush that makes everything he paints come to life. He
paints items for his poor friends. Find out what happens when a greedy emperor steals his paintbrush. This book is beautifully
illustrated in watercolors.
The Warlord's Puzzle
By Virginia Walton Pilegard, Illustrated by Nicholas Debon
A Chinese warlord receives a ceramic tile as a gift and promptly sentences the artist who made it to death when the title
is shattered into seven pieces. The desperate artist proposes that a contest be held. The person who can solve the puzzle
wins a great prize. The illustrations in Warlord's Puzzle are vibrant and expressive. In addition to telling a Chinese
tale, this book is a great introduction to math.
The Hunter: A Chinese Folktale
By Mary Casanova, Illustrated by Ed Young
The book tells the story of Hai Li Bu, a hunter whose village is facing a drought and food shortage. But things change for
the better after a magical encounter. Hai Li Bu faces an ethical question. The illustrations are mainly in brown and black.
I liked them, but I think a child would find them a bit dull compared to the brightly illustrated books they typically see.
A Mother for Choco
By Keiko Kasza
Choco is a little bird who sets out to find a mother. He looks far and wide for another animal who looks like him to be his
mother. He finds out a mother is not looks, but about hugs and play and unconditional love. A Mother for Choco is
a great, simple introduction to adoption for young children.
The Dragon's Pearl
By Julie Lawson, Illustrated by Paul Morin
Xiao Sheng loves to sing and celebrate each day. He and his mother are very poor, but he still has hope that tomorrow will
be better. One day, as he is working, he comes upon a magic pearl which bring he and his mother good luck. They share their
good fortune with their neighbors until two men steal the pearl. The illustrations are just as captivating as the rest of
the story. This is a fairytale worth reading again and again.
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