Making Contact. Dirck Brown & Susan Miller-Havens. AAC.

Man & His Mother, A: An Adopted Son’s Search. Tim Green. 1997. 225p. Regan Books. The former NFL All-American defensive end and current sports commentator on Fox and NPR, Tim Green details the story of his life as an adoptee, the effect being adopted had on him, and the ultimately successful search for his birth parents (includes numerous photographs).

Man Named Dave, A: A Story of Triumph & Forgiveness. David J Pelzer. 1999. 284p. Dutton. The third tale in David Pelzer’s autobiographical trilogy, A Man Named Dave is an inspiring story of terror, recovery, and hope experienced by the author throughout his life. Known for his work as a child abuse advocate, Pelzer has been commended by several U.S. presidents and international agencies, and his previous memoirs of growing up as an abused child (A Child Called “It” and The Lost Boy) have touched thousands of lives. He provides living proof that we can “stop the cycle” and lead fulfilling, rewarding lives full of healthy relationships. Ultimately triumphant, this book will have you living through the eyes of a terrified child, a struggling young man, and an adult finally forgiving his dying father—reading with tissues nearby is recommended. Ending with a touching conversation between the author and his own son, you’ll finish reading this with a warm heart and an enriched understanding of the need for compassion in all parts of life. — Jill Lightner About the Author: Dave Pelzer is the international bestselling author of A Child Called “It” and The Lost Boy. He travels throughout the country, inspiring hope and resilience in countless individuals. Dave has received commendations from Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, and, in 1994, was the only American recipient of The Outstanding Young Persons of the World award. He is also the author of a self-help book called Help Yourself: Celebrating the Daily Rewards of Resilience and Gratitude. By the Same Author: The Privilege of Youth.

Maria Pasqua. Magdalen Goffin. 1979. 171p. Oxford University Press (UK). Maria Pasqua was born of impoverished Italian peasants in 1856. Gifted with exceptional beauty, at an early age started modelling for artists in Rome where she was an instant success. Her whole future was determined when a rich and childless Englishwoman (The Comtesse de Noailles, a member of the Baring family) adopted her—Maria’s father sold her for the price of a vineyard—and she was brought up in the somewhat bizarre principles in which the Comtesse believed. The Comtesse was an eccentric on a grand scale—she had an invincible faith in the beneficent effect of the breath of cattle, and would keep a cow tethered by every ground floor window so that its wholesome breath could infuse the room—she refused to travel when the wind was in the East, or to stay in a house with oak trees nearby—she had red glass fitted in her windows for reasons of her health, and wore a fur hat in bed. Maria married a country doctor 20 years her senior and despite the peculiarities of her husband and the constance interference of the Comtesse, found herself imprisioned within the routine of a typical country house of the period. The author is the granddaughter of Maria Pasqua.

Memoirs of a Public Baby. Philip O’Connor. 1958. 232p. Faber & Faber (London). The story of a brilliant young man. The extraordinary story of his adventures is searingly funny, exhilarating, and marvelously wise. He has been a vagrant, a poet, and a journalist for the BBC. About the Author: Memoirist who died at age 81 in the South of France. Memoirs of a Public Baby (1958), a frank account of his abject childhood and misspent youth, was praised by Connolly, Spender, Toynbee. During a life in which he dabbled in painting and poetry, turned out published and unpublished works and supported himself through friends and various of his six wives, O’Connor wrote incessantly, mainly about himself. Lower View (1960) and Living in Croesor (1962) were less popular than Vagrancy (1963). He once “jumped out from behind a door and shouted ‘BOO!’ at T.S. Eliot.” At forty, moved from England to France with Panna Grady, 20, who survives him 41 years later in Uzes. Eight children, eight grandchildren.

Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years. Misha Defonseca & Vera Lee. 1997. 250p. Mount Ivy Press. Misha was 7 years old when her mother and father were taken away and she was hidden in a “safe” home her parents secretly had arranged for her. But when the child overheard her stepmother planning to turn her over to the Germans, she took off on foot to find her parents. Hiding in the forest, she survived by stealing from farm kitchens along her way and pilfering crops in the field. Often she was near starvation and many times nearly froze to death. In the course of her travels she was befriended by wolves, and among their family she experienced the happiest moments of her troubled life. “I never remember being hungry in the company of wolves,” she writes. Through all her trials Misha continued to believe she could find her parents and so she kept walking for four years across war-ravaged Europe, witnessing first-hand the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. Before the end of the war she would be captured by partisans, trapped in the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, forced to kill a Nazi soldier in self defense and swept up by her first love. When Defonseca finally returned to Belgium, she was adopted by two school teachers and eventually became a teacher herself. This inspiring story, full of passion, terror and courage is a classic in the manner of Anne Frank’s Diary, with the difference that in this tale the narrator survives.

Miss New York Has Everything. Lori Jakiela. 2006. 304p. 5 Spot. In her newly published memoir, Miss New York Has Everything, Jakiela, who was born with clubfeet and adopted at the age of one, shares memories of her childhood growing up southeast of Pittsburgh in Trafford, PA—hometown of The Love Boat’s Lauren Tewes—where she dreamed of becoming famous and making it big. Inspired by her childhood idol, Marlo Thomas in That Girl, she always wanted to move to New York City and away from the small town where her cantankerous father worked in the steel mills. When she sees an ad from an airline company promising a home base in the Big Apple and a jet-setting lifestyle all over the world, she quickly signs up. But she learns that being a flight attendant is far from glamorous. Instead of Paris layovers in a pillbox hat and white gloves, she gets Frankfurt in a one-size-fits-all polyester uniform and apron. When her father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she returns to Trafford only to discover that the writing career and life she always wanted were right there at home-and that the grass in her own backyard might just be greener than the one on TV.

Missing Links. Vincent J Begley. 1989. 202p. Claycomb Press, Inc. “Adoption is not an affliction. There are no star-studded benefits or telethons to raise money for adoptees. In a world looking for solutions, adoption is a solution. Not a problem. Or so they say. To the millions of people who answer to the name ‘adoptee,’ adoption is something of a paradox, an enigma. It is a question in the form of an riddle. ‘Who am I?’ Some adoptees wonder. Others search. I wondered. And then I searched. What I learned along the way was more than just finding my missing links. I learned that all of us are adoptees.” — Vincent J. Begley

Missing Pieces: The Story of a Woman’s Search for Her Birth Family. Sherry Cochran. 2004. 200p. Kiwe Publishing. Missing Pieces is the compelling story of a woman’s search for her birth family. It is a searing autobiography about a child who survives neglect, abandonment, physical and sexual abuse, a failed adoption, the foster care system, and hereditary progressive hearing loss in her successful quest for reunification with her birth family. The book is written in concurrent story lines: through the eyes of a child during a traumatic childhood and with the drive of an adult experiencing the frustrations of a challenging search for her lost family. The reader is compellingly drawn into the horrific struggles of the young girl and the prolonged anxieties of the searching adult who at last finds her missing identity. About the Author: Sherry Cochran was born in Ellensburg, WA, where she lived in her first foster home. She was adopted at age five and moved to Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound area. Her adoption was dissolved at age twelve and she was returned to foster care until she graduated from high school. She was reunited with her birth family at age 28. Her birth mother and all ten siblings now reside in Washington State. Sherry lives with her husband, daughter, and son the Seattle area. She is recognized for her writing and for her interest in family and health issues.

Missing Sarah: A Vancouver Woman Remembers Her Vanished Sister. Maggie de Vries. 2003. 288p. Penguin Books (Canada). On April 14, 1998, Sarah de Vries disappeared from the corner of Princess and Hastings in Vancouver. She became one of the many women who had vanished from the Downtown Eastside, women—most of them prostitutes or drug addicts—whose fate was all but ignored by the authorities. Years went by, women continued to disappear, and there were no answers for their families. For the women who disappeared did have families. They were loved, they had friends, they had lives that began long before their terrible end. And Maggie de Vries’s sister Sarah was one of them. Although Sarah and Maggie shared a comfortable, middle-class upbringing, Sarah, adopted as an infant, was black, while the rest of her family was white; and so she alone was the victim of racist taunts and prejudice. As Sarah reached adolescence, her troubles grew. She ran away from home. She became addicted to drugs. She ended up on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. But always she was loved. Missing Sarah, which incorporates excerpts from Sarah’s journals, is Maggie de Vries’s story of her search for her sister. From those journals, and from the recollections of people who knew Sarah during her 14 years downtown, emerges a portrait of a bright, funny and sensitive woman who found herself trapped in a downward spiral of self-loathing, prostitution, drugs and violence. From the moment Sarah disappeared, her sister never stopped looking for her. Even after Sarah’s DNA was discovered at Robert Pickton’s farm, and hope was replaced by grim certainty, Maggie continued her search. This time she was looking for answers. Why did so many women have to disappear before the authorities took notice? Was there any way Sarah could have been saved from her life on the streets? And what can we do to help those women who are still trapped, by chance or circumstance, in the same bleak world that Sarah de Vries once inhabited? About the Author: Currently children’s book editor at Orca Book Publishers in Victoria, Maggie deVries was born in Guelph, Ontario, and grew up in Vancouver where she now resides. Maggie studied at University of Guelph, McGill University (Montreal) and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in English Literature and a Bachelor of Education. She worked as a substitute teacher for five years. She worked as the children’s author (who is also her aunt) Jean Little’s assistant for two years in the late ’80s, traveled with her all over Canada and the States and in England, and taught children’s literature courses with her at the University of Guelph. Maggie currently teaches children’s literature courses in Language and Literacy Education at UBC and has taught creative writing at Langara Community College in Vancouver. She now teaches a graduate course in writing and publishing in the School of Library, Archival and Information studies at UBC every summer. She has taught a graduate course in Canadian children’s literature at Simmons College in Boston in 1994. Maggie also speaks widely to children about her children’s writing and to adults about her adult book (Missing Sarah) and related experiences. Maggie DeVries was awarded the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in B.C. Literature for 2004 and her book Missing Sarah was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award.

Mississippi Mud: Searching for Sarah: An Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots. Maria Morgan. 2008. 124p. Mountain Valley Publishing. A search for wholeness of being—a loss from inception—lost to the world of illegal adoptions that took place in the 1950s after World War II. The Whitfield County Babies, as they call themselves, were sold on the black market to the State-rejected unfit parents who could pay. Born in the back of drugstore in a small Mississippi town on a cold table, delivered by an unethical doctor and the matron of a profitable unwed mother’s home, these illegitimate discarded babies were bound together by their beginning. As grown adults, thanks to the computer age, they find each other and band together to search for their roots, the birth families who gave them away in shame so many years before. This story takes you through the mud of deceit, secrets, and sometimes surprisingly good intentions to uncover the unceasing pain borne by adoptees who suffer in ignorance of their genetic birth histories. Redemption awaits on all sides as their stories unfold.

Mister God, This is Anna. Fynn. Illustrated by Papas. 1974. 190p. Collins (UK). The poignant and inspirational true story of a four-year-old abandoned girl who is adopted by a man who finds her in the streets. Anna’s occupation in life was being personal friend and helper to Mister God. She knew the purpose of being and the meaning of love. At six years she was a theologian, mathematician, philosopher, poet and gardener. At seven she died after a terrible accident with a grin on her beautiful face saying: “I bet Mister God lets me get into heaven for this.”

Mistress’s Daughter, The. AM Homes. 2007. 240p. Viking. An acclaimed novelist’s riveting memoir about what it means to be adopted and how all of us construct our sense of self and family. Before A.M. Homes was born, she was put up for adoption. Her birth mother was a twenty-two-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with children of his own. The Mistress’s Daughter is the story of what happened when, thirty years later, her birth parents came looking for her. Homes, renowned for the psychological accuracy and emotional intensity of her storytelling, tells how her birth parents initially made contact with her and what happened afterward (her mother stalked her and appeared unannounced at a reading) and what she was able to reconstruct about the story of their lives and their families. Her birth mother, a complex and lonely woman, never married or had another child, and died of kidney failure in 1998; her birth father, who initially made overtures about inviting her into his family, never did. Then the story jumps forward several years to when Homes opens the boxes of her mother’s memorabilia. She had hoped to find her mother in those boxes, to know her secrets, but no relief came. She became increasingly obsessed with finding out as much as she could about all four parents and their families, hiring researchers and spending hours poring through newspaper morgues, municipal archives and genealogical Web sites. This brave, daring, and funny book is a story about what it means to be adopted, but it is also about identity and how all of us define our sense of self and family. About the Author: A.M. Homes is the author of several books of fiction. She has been awarded a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

Mixed Blessing: The Dramatic True Story of a Woman’s Search for Her Real Mother. Doris McMillon (with Michele Sherman). 1985. 247p. St Martin’s Press. McMillon was born just after World War II to a German woman; her father was an African-American soldier in the allied occupation force. Unable to care for her, her parents placed her in an orphanage in Munich, and she was very soon adopted by another US soldier and his wife. She was raised in Germany, France and the USA. Her adoptive mother became mentally ill and physically and emotionally abused her. In spite of this McMillon grew up ambitious for success and with the self-confidence to achieve. A related article by Ms. McMillon appeared in Ebony Magazine under the title, “A Double Reunion—How I found my German Mother and GI Father.”

Molly: Child Number 583. Mary Keenan. 2000. 253p. General Store Publishing House (Canada). The story of the author’s life in a Maritime orphanage and her search for her birth parents.

Mommie Dearest. Christina Crawford. 1978. 342p. William Morrow & Co. With the 20th Anniversary Edition of Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford becomes one of the only authors in publishing history to re-issue a number one best-seller. “The new edition is published as I intended it. More than 100 pages—mostly that delve into my adult relationship with Mother—that were left out of the original version are back in,” said Ms. Crawford. “I’ve also added eyewitness accounts from people who came forward with information after the book was initially published, a preface to reflect the whirlwind that has happened in my life since Mommie Dearest was first published, and an afterword on adoption reform.” When it was released in 1978, Christina Crawford’s Mommie Dearest made an indelible impression on America’s cultural landscape: it enjoyed 42 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, spawned a cult film classic based on the book, and placed the issue of family violence in the national spotlight. Issues of family violence brought to light then have yet to be resolved today and the book still stands as a catalyst for change. Christina Crawford is an internationally recognized, best-selling author and advocate for adoption reform, the rights of women and children, and a pioneer in making family violence an issue of national concern.

Mommy, Don’t!. Michele Swensen. 2007. 415p. Lulu.com. Mommy, Don’t! is the poignant story of child abuse and its lifetime effects. More than a memoir, Mommy, Don’t! offers advice to teachers, social workers, parents, neighbors, and anyone who desires to make a difference in the life of a child. A eye-opening “must read” for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world.

Mother Can You Hear Me?: The Extraordinary True Story of an Adopted Daughter’s Reunion with Her Birth Mother After a Separation of Fifty Years. Elizabeth C Allen. 1983. 208p. Dodd Mead. All her life, Betty Allen, who was adopted, had wondered who her birth mother was. But it was not until her adoptive parents had died, and she was already middle-aged, that she had the opportunity to be reunited with her.

Mother Country. Jeremy Harding. 2006. 192p. Faber & Faber (UK). This is a hugely moving and affecting literary memoir of adoption, a family mystery, and the need to belong. When Jeremy Harding was a child, his mother Maureen told him he was adopted. She described his natural parents as a Scandinavian sailor and a “little Irish girl” who worked at Woolworth’s. It was only later, as Harding set out to look for traces of his birth mother, that he began to understand who his adoptive mother really was—and the benign make-believe world she’d built for herself and her little boy. Mother Country evokes a magical childhood spent in transit between Notting Hill Gate and a decrepit houseboat on the banks of the Thames. It is a detective quest, as Harding searches through the public record for a clue about his natural mother, and a rich social history of a lost London from the 1950s. Mother Country is a powerful true story, full of thrilling revelations, comic confusion, and tender memories, about a man looking for the mother he’d never known, and finding out how little he’d understood about the one he’d grown up with. About the Author: Jeremy Harding is a contributing editor at the London Review of Books. He lives in France, an hour from Bordeaux in a house by the river Dronne, with his wife and three sons (aged 12, 10 and 6).

Mother Me: An Adopted Woman’s Journey to Motherhood. Zara H Phillips. 2008. 226p. British Association for Adoption & Fostering (UK). As the adopted daughter of well-meaning and loving parents, Zara Phillips always feels out of place; she grows up feeling insecure and alone, consumed by a void she finds impossible to fill. Her sense of isolation leads to rebellion and a downward spiral to a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle fuelled by addictions to drugs, alcohol and destructive relationships. Then come reunion and recovery, as a move to California, marriage and, above all, the birth of her three children help her to reach an understanding of her past and a final sense of compassion for both her adoptive and birth families. In this intensely personal and compelling memoir, Zara describes her feelings and explores her relationships with her adoptive and birth mothers, and invites the reader to join her in her own journey to becoming a mother. Mother Me is a frank and honest account which explores the far-reaching impact of adoption on childhood, adolescence, relationships and self-esteem. It also provides a unique insight into pregnancy and motherhood from the perspective of an adopted woman.

Mother, Mother. James Stingley. 1981. 219p. St Martin’s Press. Memoir of a prize-winning journalist for the Los Angeles Times whose life was turned inside out when he received a letter from a Beverly Hills woman who revealed herself to be his biological mother. Her revelation thrust Stingley into a new life of wealth and glamour and pain—and toward the astounding secret of his birth.

Mother’s Disgrace, A. Robert Dessaix. 1994. HarperCollins (Australia). The intimate and moving account of the search for origins and identity by respected author, broadcaster, essayist and translator Robert Dessaix. Adopted as a baby towards the end of World War II, Robert Dessaix grew up haunted by “a shaft of silence” surrounding the question of his natural mother’s identity, and of his identity and sexuality. In this touching memoir, he recounts the story of a most unusual childhood on Sydney’s North Shore; of his fascination with Russia and his years spent studying in Cold War Moscow; and of his restless wanderings around the world. A Mother’s Disgrace was shortlisted for the Association for the Study of Australian Literature Gold Medal, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, and highly commended for the FAW Christina Stead Award, The Age book of the Year and the National Book Council CUB Banjo Award. In 1999 it was translated into French and published by Editions du Reflet in France. [Cover shown: 2002 reissue.]

Mother’s Love, A. Angela E. Caligone. 2005. 80p. Tate Publishing & Enterprises. A Mother’s Love is a true story emphasizing God’s enduring love to an adopted young girl, Angela, who grew to know Him intimately after a troubled childhood. The book deals with the spiritual challenges of rejection, disappointment and lack of purpose, as well as God’s path to restoration. A Mother’s Love is an inspirational love story—a true story. This story could be the story of so many children who have gone through similar situations.

Mother’s Love Continues, A. Angela E. Caligone. 2008. 128p. Tate Publishing & Enterprises. A Mother’s Love Continues is a true story emphasizing God’s enduring love to an adopted young girl, Angela, who grew to know Him intimately after a troubled childhood. The book deals with the spiritual challenges of rejection, disappointment, and lack of purpose, as well as God’s path to restoration. Picking up where A Mothers Love left off, A Mothers Love Continues follows Angela through more heartache and, amazingly, a strengthening of character that will inspire all.

Murder at the House of Diamonds: A Shocking True Story. Charles J Kane. 1990. 208p. Jay-Ce.

My Adoption, My Search & My Right to Know. Rick L Weiner, MSW, LCSW. 2009. 88p. Xlibris Corp. My Adoption, My Search & My Right to Know is a nonfictional story about one man’s search for his natural parents. This story was aired twice on a local television news channel, KABC, in Los Angeles, CA, in 1976 and was in the Los Angeles Times, at the time that the search took place. This story, with all of its emotion and unusual twists and turns, will captivate readers as they read each chapter. It is a heartwarming story for anyone who has adopted a child, or is about to adopt. Packed with emotion, sadness, love and heartache, it will take you on one man’s journey and his determination to find his natural parents, while maintaining the love and devotion that he holds for his adoptive parents. While on this journey he will show detailed descriptions of how he went about searching with all its successes and failures. It will also outline some of the many adoption laws which vary from state to state that are in place to protect both of the families and how he was able to overcome his fears and follow his dreams. The author has had many requests from individuals who expressed their interest in reading this novel. One of the most frequently asked question has always been where they could purchase a copy of his novel. His response to all of them has been that he is currently awaiting its publication. I hope that you the reader will give this novel the recognition it deserves and the opportunity for it to be published. It is inspirational, emotional and a powerful journey which I invite you to take. — Rick L. Weiner.

My Bouquet of Kisses. JD Anderson. 2006. BookSurge Publishing. Living with a volatile, abusive adoptive mother and trying to fend off sexual abuse alone without any adult help, Jan grew up feeling scared, confused, insecure and unloved. The affection and support of siblings, a kind teacher, the reunification with her maternal grandmother, and her faith in God helped her gain confidence and overcome substantial odds.

My Fathers’ Daughter: A Story of Family & Belonging. Hannah Pool. 2009. 288p. Free Press. In 2004, Hannah Pool knew more about next season’s lipstick colors than she did about Africa: a beauty editor for The Guardian newspaper, she juggled lattes and cocktails, handbags and hangouts through her twenties just like any other beautiful, independent Londoner. Her white, English adoptive relatives were beloved to her and were all the family she needed. Contacted by relatives she didn’t know she had, she decided to visit Eritrea, the war-torn African country of her birth, and answer for herself the daunting questions every adopted child asks. What Hannah Pool learned on her journey forms a narrative of insight, wisdom, wit, and warmth beyond all expectations. A story that will “send shivers down [your] spine,” (The Bookseller), My Fathers’ Daughter follows Hannah Pool’s brave and heartbreaking return to Africa to meet the family she lost—and the father she thought was dead. About the Author: Best known for her column “The New Black,” Hannah Pool is a feature writer at The Guardian newspaper and lives in London. This is her first book.

My Father’s Eyes. Cheryle Timbrook Jennings. 1999. 155p. Paige Publishing Company. The book is about my search for my birth father and the impact not knowing him had on my life before and after finding him. My Father’s Eyes was written not only for the adult adoptee and discarded child, but also for the adoptive, alternative and birth parents. My hope for the book is through the reading of these pages, the parties involved will gain insight and understanding into how this situation truly feels to their adult child. With all they have, there is still something missing—that yearning like all of us, to know from who and where we came. About the Author: Cheryle Timbrook Jennings is a real estate agent in the Phoenix, AZ, area. She is also a Certified Hypnotherapist. Her qualifications in writing this book was in the living of the subject.

My Father’s House. David Jones. 2005. 190p. iUniverse, Inc. I always knew I was adopted. My earliest memory is of being told that by my father and throughout my life that has made a world of difference. About the Author: David Jones was adopted when he was 10 days old and has always regarded Alan and Carol Jones as his parents. He taught American History at North Carolina Wesleyan College for twenty-seven years. He and his wife Nancy have three children and two grandchildren.

My God Box: Parable of the Incorrigible Child. Margaret Iuculano. 2008. 220p. Penance Publishing. My God Box is Margaret’s memoir about her abusive childhood. She lived in a receiving home for battered children called Juvenile Hall, a carousel of foster care families, a mental health facility and on the streets of California—all before the Holy Ghost impregnated her heart with a love of God, planting in her mind an iron clad faith in the Divine Creator. Labeled an incorrigible child, Margaret was pulled from school and her friends, and banished from the family home. But God had other plans for her. Miserable, with no one to turn to, Margaret says, I received a special gift the Holy Ghost enlightened me to the love and goodness of the Lord. It was empowering. It was a life altering event but more importantly I received a calling to help others. This book is for anyone suffering from a past trauma who wants to learn how to move on with their life. My God Box is the revelation of how Margaret shattered the victim mind-set; a self-defamatory attitude that actually made her more of a victim than the devastating circumstances of her life. With the help of God, she affirms, I was able to interrupt the harmful sequence of negativity and concentrate on utilizing my faith to rid me of the fears and insecurities that locked me in an impasse. My God Box is about the power of faith in God. It s about opening your mind and heart to the message of God. It s about awareness of the evils that surround us, and about having the courage to right the wrongs that bring pain and misery to other children. About the Author: Margaret Iuculano is a wife, mother, successful entrepreneur and child rights activist. She grew up in San Diego and worked for 15 years in the software consulting industry before purchasing her own software training and consulting company. Margaret served as CEO for 6 years before selling the company. She has been involved in several other entrepreneurial adventures , including designing and opening a wine bar and redeveloping a historic building. Margaret’s first novel, My God Box, was two years in the making, She is working on a new book now, due out in 2008. Margaret lives in Tampa, Florida, where she is actively involved in creating awareness about the issues facing foster children in the US. She hopes to build a group home that provides a safe, secure environment for the aging out of foster care children, so that they can become successful adults.

My God!! It’s a Cyclone: A Survivor’s Perspective on the Long Term Effect of Nature’s Fury. Jackson Lewis Latham, Jr. 2005. AuthorHouse. On March 21, 1932, a tornado hit the central part of Alabama, causing death and destruction. This one was designated as the deadliest to have hit Alabama in history. There were two that hit that week, the second being March 27. The death toll from the first one was reported as being 214. The second one brought the total deaths to over 400. The first one that hit about 6:30 p.m. took my father, mother, and five siblings, leaving the four youngest of ten children orphaned. Witnesses who saw our house when it hit said the house was taken up in the air about fifty feet, then exploded. The family was gathered in the room used as a family gathering place, and my Father uttered the last words anyone heard him speak before he was killed: “My God!! It’s a cyclone”. At that time tornadoes were called cyclones. When the house exploded, the family was scattered and the youngest girl, Velma, was blown back in the direction from which the tornado came. She was found about two lengths of a football field, and across a creek. The only garment she had on was the cuff of a sleeve from the dress she had been wearing. My Father was found some distance from where the house had stood, and the rest closer together. Only three boys and one girl, the youngest, survived. The four of us were placed in an ambulance at one time and taken to the hospital. After leaving the Vaughn Memorial Hospital, we were supposed to have been adopted by a family in Selma, Alabama. They had only wanted the youngest boy and girl, but were told they had to take all four or none. It was agreed, but later, the oldest boy was sent away, and about a year later I was sent away as well. About the Author: I have no previous experience in writing. I was urged to write this account of the tornado that took most of my immediate family by my granddaughters. I can only write of the actual events in a first person format, and the descriptions and words used are as those spoken during that period of time. Most of the events in this work were things I actually experienced, revealed to me by relative, persons who were living in the area when the tornado occurred, newspaper clippings, and court records. I had but a 6th grade education until the year 2000. At this time I received my GED, and in 2002, entered Central Alabama College at Childersburg, Alabama. Due to several periods of illness, I had to drop out twice during the two years I was enrolled. I attended under an Alabama Law that allowed persons sixty years or older to attend a State-operated college for two years, paying only for books and lab fees. While it would not have been possible to receive a diploma, it was possible to receive a certificate. As I had to drop out prior to completing the required two years, I did not receive one. Prior to my becoming ill, my GPA had been 3.78. It might very surprise some or cause concern regarding the way foster homes were operated during the time after my parents were killed. There was no close supervision by Welfare Case workers of the treatment of the children placed in these homes, and most were used for slave labor. There was not, for the most part, any feelings of concern for the children and the treatment was brutal at times. Most kept children for the money they received from the state, as well as the free labor the children provided. The case workers did not make many inspections to know what was occurring. Most visited a foster home possibly once each year, and the time for the visit was related to the foster parents in advance, so everything appeared normal. If nothing more comes from this book than the need to better supervise the foster homes, it will all have been worth it.

My Life Adopted. Nicholas Szara. 2009. 123p. PublishAmerica. What happens when a family member dies? What happens when you are adopted? What happens when at a young age your parent re-marries and your “step-family” is who you must now live with? How can you feel lost when you’ve never been found? My Life Adopted is a recollection by Nick of his thoughts and feelings growing up without biological family. From an early age, Nicholas vowed to help kids who face the same challenges he faced. His role model, the adopted father he lost at nine years of age, has inspired him in all of his journeys. He received his master’s degree in psychology in 2004, and has run a youth mentor program in his hometown for the past four years. Between Nicholas’ experiences of loss to his uncommon thoughts on life’s experiences, this book offers a glimpse into adoption, different family structure, love, death, and other life’s trivial issues.

My Name’s Not Susie: A Life Transformed by Literacy. Sharon J Hamilton. Foreword by Janice Lauer. 1995. 153p. Boynton/Cook. By age three, Karen Agnes Fleming had already been neglected by her mother and made a ward of the court; had been in eighteen foster homes where she was given a series of new names; had experienced physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; and had been labeled disobedient, uneducable, and a social misfit. At three and a half, Karen was adopted, her name was changed to Sharon Jean Hamilton, and she started on a long, hard road toward dispelling those early labels. On that road, literacy was the key to transforming her life. She discovered possible worlds—alternatives to her own experiences—by reading about them, moving from L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables to Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. She discovered insights into her own world by writing about it. Now in her fifties with a Ph.D. in language and literature from London University, Sharon Jean Hamilton is an English professor. The catalyst for writing My Name’s Not Susie was her own classroom. As she observed her nontraditional university students struggling to improve their lives through a literacy-based liberal art education, she was inspired to share her own story.

My Secret Mother: Lorna Moon. Richard de Mille. 1998. 311p. Farrar Straus & Giroux. My Secret Mother is a delicious blend of memoir and mystery. Richard de Mille, Cecil B. DeMille’s adopted son (Cecil contracted his last name to make it easier for moviegoers to remember), recalls a happy childhood set in a house full of children against a backdrop of early Hollywood. De Mille learned early that he was adopted, along with two other siblings, but his loving parents rendered this fact a mere triviality to the boy. Soon, however, he was troubled by his striking resemblance to his paternal grandfather. Incidents in which schoolboy friends and caretakers claimed to know “something” about him only enhanced his curiosity about the circumstances of his birth. He believed he might have been his father’s illegitimate son, accepted into the family by his even-tempered mother. It was not until 1955, when he was in his 30s, that de Mille learned his history: he was, in fact, the son of his paternal “Uncle,” William, and the novelist (Dark Star, e.g.) and silent-film scenarist Lorna Moon. But solving the mystery of his origins revealed yet another enigma: Moon. In My Secret Mother, de Mille sets out on a journey to discover his mother, dead for 25 years, and in the process uncovers a history of two families that stretches as far back as Belgium in the first century B.C. on his father’s side and the hardscrabble village of Strichen, Scotland, on his mother’s. Part genealogy, part homage to a lost mother, part portrait of one of Hollywood’s most powerful families and enduring legacies, My Secret Mother is an engrossing study of one man’s attempt to solve the mystery of identity.

Napoleon’s Viceroy: Eugène De Beauharnais. Carola Oman. 1966. 528p. Hodder & Stoughton (UK). The first English biography of Napoleon’s adopted son. Eugene de Beauharnais was Napoleon’s Viceroy of Italy and Prince of Venice. As a teenager he had distinguished himself in Napoleon’s Egyptian and Italian Campaigns; he took command when Murat deserted during the retreat from Moscow.

Nathan D Kaufman Autobiography, The. Nathan D Kaufman. 2007. 58p. PawPrints. Nathan and his family tell the story of his life: adopted in Indonesia; childhood experiences; learning to live with disabilities; living a normal life. About the Author: Nathan Kaufman has lived in North Newton KS, with his wife, Jill, for 33 years.

95 Years with John “Jack” Day: The Orphan Nobody Wanted: An Autobiography. Jack Day. 1997. 253p. Mayhaven Publishing.

No Remorse: Why Greg Mox & Other Adoptees Killed. Lori Carangelo. 2000. 150p. Access Press. When children kill, apparently without reason or remorse, the public and media asks “Why?” This rare interview with a parent killer is the true story of Gregory Mox, who is serving a life sentence for murdering his adoptive parents by bludgeoning them to death and setting their bodies on fire. The author allows her subject to tell his story in his own words ... and finds comparisons between Gregory Mox and dozens of other children who have killed their parents—as well as with serial killers—with astounding conclusions.

Not Lost Forever: My Story of Survival. Carmina Salcido, with Steve Jackson. 2009. 304p. William Morrow. On April 14, 1989, for reasons still debated today, Mexican immigrant RamÓn Salcido went on a violent rampage in the idyllic Sonoma Valley wine country where he lived and worked. In the course of just two hours, he killed his wife, Angela, her two younger sisters, his mother-in-law, and the man with whom he suspected Angela was having an affair. He then slashed the throats of his three young daughters—four-year-old Sophia, three-year-old Carmina, and twenty-two-month-old Teresa—leaving them for dead in the county dump. A little more than a day later, the bodies of his daughters were discovered. Miraculously, tiny Carmina was still alive and able to tell her rescuers, “My daddy cut me.” In Not Lost Forever, Carmina Salcido explores the events surrounding these headline-making murders with extraordinary clarity and composure. Reaching back to understand the events that traumatized her in childhood—and weaving them together with the recollections of detectives and witnesses—she reconstructs the story of her father’s crimes, and their aftermath, in sobering detail. Yet Carmina’s story doesn’t end there. Those who remember her as the tiny victim of these murders will also be shocked by what followed: how she was adopted by a Catholic extremist family who tried to change her name and bury her past; how she tried to escape their sheltering influence by joining a Carmelite convent and then a ranch for troubled girls; and how the psychological trials she endured along the way nearly broke her spirit—until, at last, she found peace by turning to the one relative still alive to share her grief: her grandfather. As a young woman, Carmina returned to California to share her experiences and discover the family that was brutally taken from her. The devout Catholic also returned to look into her father’s eyes on death row and confront the man who took away her entire family. With clear-eyed candor, courage, and grace, this brave young woman takes readers along on her miraculous journey of survival, discovery, and hope.

Not Remembered Never Forgotten: An Adoptee’s Search for His Birth Family. Robert Hafetz. 2005. 118p. Gateway Press. Not Remembered Never Forgotten is an examination of the resolution of an adoptee’s emotional memories and the search for the authentic self. Not knowing his name at birth, and barred by archaic secrecy laws that seal adoption records forever, the author searched back through fifty years of his past to find the truth that would redefine the essence of who he is. About the Author: Robert Allan Hafetz was born January 28, 1951, in the Door of Hope Salvation Army Booth Home, in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1970 he started his career as a commercial photographer in New York City. A late in life graduate of Temple University, Bob was awarded a BS degree in Therapeutic Recreation, along with the Bill Dayton Award for working with the physically disabled. During the past ten years Bob has worked as an adjunctive therapist in the mental health system of Pennsylvania serving inpatient adults and adolescents in the residential treatment system. He has been married 32 years and has three children. He was wheelchair weightlifting coach for McGee Rehabilitation Hospital, and his team holds two world records in the Para-Olympics. He was also a trainer for their quadriplegic rugby team. Bob currently has been facillitating adoption workshops targeted to all members of the adoption society; Adoptees, bonded first mothers, fathers, adopting families, school educators, and adoption professionals. Bob serves on the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform & Education (NJCARE) legislative team working to give adoptees access to their original birth certificates. An avid fisherman he returns often to the Jersey shore to fish for tuna, bluefish and striped bass. Visit the Author’s Website.

Oceans Apart: A Voyage of International Adoption. Mary Mustard Reed. 2008. 272p. JKD Enterprise. As a seven-year-old girl in Vietnam, Mary suffered an almost fatal bout of small pox—an uncanny twist of fate that changed her life forever. Entrusted to an American couple by her young mother, who was desperate to pull her daughter from death’s door, Mary bid her mother a traumatic farewell at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport and was taken to the United States. There, she experienced and abusive childhood filled with neglect as well as physical and emotional turmoil. Shortly after arriving in the US, Mary overheard a conversation in which her adoptive father, Sam Mustard, learned that her mother was the victim of a bombing raid in Saigon during the Vietnam War. However, this was not true, and after almost three decades of tears and lost hope, the Red Cross successfully reunited mother and daughter—and did so without the aid of any legal documents concerning their whereabouts. This story is an empowering testament to the courage, tenacity and determination of two hemomenal women: a mother who sacrificed parental love to give her daughter a better life and a daughter who desperately sought to recapture her lost identity.

Ocultando No Mas / Hiding No More: Unmasking Adoption & Reunion. Denise M Hoffman. 2009. 78p. Dorrance Publishing Co. “You are cordially invited to attend a private performance of A New Orleans Reunion, playing for a limited time only (10/6/07 to 10/7/07) at undisclosed locations (to be disclosed upon acceptance of invitation) in the French Quarter.” Amid the bright lights and thunderous applause, a masked performer will finally reveal herself to her birthmother and four half-sisters for the very first time-and behind closed curtains will finally, after years of wondering, reveal herself to the person in the mirror. Creatively crafted in a series of stage plays and commentaries, Ocultando No Mas / Hiding No More: Unmasking Adoption and Reunion is more than a first-person account of being solely an adoptee; it is ultimately an evolutionary journey toward connectedness and authenticity. About the Author: Denise M. Hoffman lives in New Orleans and is a personal trainer for a hospital-based fitness center. She holds a master’s degree in natural health/wellness from Clayton College in Alabama, is a yoga enthusiast, and draws inspiration from nature (including, but not limited to, mystical Central American landscapes) to enhance her creative intuitiveness for writing. This is her first book—but not her last!

Of Unknown Origin: A Memoir. Debra Levi Holtz. 2001. 288p. Council Oak Distribution. A true story that could have been culled from the best of Chandler or Ellroy, Of Unknown Origin is about a woman insistent on re-claiming her family history and her own identity, however terrifying the consequences may be. Debra Levi Holtz’s attempts to locate her birth mother are riddled with veiled threats and dead ends. The truth about Debbie’s mother is inextricably linked to the buried history of her adoptive father, Jewish mobster Manny Skar, who was gunned down in front of their apartment building when Debbie was still a child. Debbie uses her reporting skills to unearth newspaper accounts of arrests, murders, and a mysteriously funded Vegas-style hotel. As she perseveres past lost files and misinformation, a picture emerges of the woman who handed her out a car window 35 years earlier—a selfish, coldly “rational” Ayn Rand devotee whose shady associations and intimidating presence recall Manny Skar. About the Author: Debra Levi Holtz was born and raised in Chicago. She graduated from Northwestern University with an MA in journalism and worked until recently as a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. She regularly attends ALMA (Adoptee’s Liberty Movement Association) meetings in Oakland, CA, where she resides. This is her first book.

On My Brothers’ Shoulders. Ty Andre. 1997. 288p. Wakefield Press. One evening in 1952, a young woman walked down to the Mekong River carrying her baby boy in a homemade basket. She lit a candle and stood it in the basket, then set her baby adrift on the stream. Miraculously, the child was rescued by a fisherman and taken to a Catholic mission on the island of Cu Lao Gieng. The little boy was named Ty, meaning “billion,” because his chances of surviving were a billion to one. This is the story of that one-in-a-billion chance.

On the Outside Looking In. Michael Reagan & Joe Hyams. 1988. 286p. Zebra. Michael Reagan represents one extreme of the human consequences of the gap between the President’s All-American-guy image and the chilly reality; his book is one long complaint, sometimes justified (he was molested in summer camp), sometimes not (the Secret Service won’t provide him with a limousine), and it leaves the impression that his childhood has left Michael mired in an unconquerable self-pity. — Nicholas Lemann, The New York Review of Books. Copyright 1983 The H.W. Wilson Company. All rights reserved. By the Same Author: Twice Adopted, 2004.

Once Removed: Voices From Inside the Adoption Triangle. Sherry Sleightholm & Wendie Remond. 1982. 136p. McGraw-Hill-Ryerson Limited. This book speaks with unique power and intimacy to the millions of people across North America who, directly or indirectly, have had their lives touched by the adoption process. Here are the moving stories, taken from actual case histories, of adoptees who have tried to uncover a hidden past; of birth parents discovered by sons or daughters they had given up for adoption years before; and of adoptive parents who must cope with feelings of rejection, jealousy and bewilderment...

One Life. Nicole Holmquist. 2007. 256p. Blooming Twig Books LLC. This is an autobiographical story of one woman’s journey of self discovery. The main character is an adoptee, having been adopted at birth; a theme that is woven throughout the story and follows the effect adoption has on a person throughout the course of a lifetime. The book takes you on a rollercoaster ride from the height of success in the modeling world to the despair of being a battered wife. Along the way amazing characters are there to guide and alter her life. Dive into this very honest portrayal by the author that comes full circle as the reader experiences the miracle with her as she finally finds her way home. About the Author: Nicole Vehorn Holmquist was born in Charleston, SC, and raised in Greenville County, SC. She currently lives with her husband and children in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

1,000 Days in Siberia: The Odyssey of a Japanese-American POW. Iwao Peter Sano. 1998. 210p. University of Nebraska Press. Sano was a California Nisei who sailed to Japan in 1939 to become an adopted son of his childless Aunt and Uncle. He was fifteen and knew no Japanese. In 1945, loyal to his new country, he was drafted and sent to Korea. It was his bad luck to belong to a unit that surrendered to the Russians.He spent almost three years in POW and Labor camps in Siberia.

Original Foster Care Survival Guide, The. Paul E Knowlton. 2005. 152p. iUniverse, Inc. What does a foster kid need to do to overcome his or her harsh beginning and make a successful transition into adulthood? Author Paul Knowlton answers this and other questions surrounding the foster care experience. Knowlton and his siblings, first generation Cuban-Americans, entered the New Jersey foster care system in 1965. They remained in foster care for various lengths of time until they met again ten years later. But their reunion was short-lived. In the years that followed, the siblings scattered and struggled, but, as they grew into adults, they bonded and prospered. Now, after twenty years of gathering information, Knowlton presents The Original Foster Care Survival Guide, which will give foster children and former foster children the critical guidance they need to overcome their experience and prosper in their new lives. With access to this unique combination of wisdom and knowledge, no foster child—present or former—will ever wonder, “What do I need to do to get out of this mess?”

Orphan: A True Story of Abandonment, Abuse, & Redemption. Roger Dean Kiser. 2000. 219p. Adams Media Corp. Roger Dean Kiser, Sr., was raised by the Children’s Home Society, a Florida orphanage, and then was passed on to the Florida School for Boys at Marianna. The dramatic true account of the abuse he suffered under the care of professionals will change how people view the juvenile justice system. His childhood was filled with a mixture of physical, mental, and sexual abuse that would have left a lesser man wishing for death, yet Kiser is grateful for simply being alive. This poignant moving story is true, sharp, and motivational and it will deeply affect the hearts and minds of all who read it. Chronicling his life through the eyes of the child he once was, Roger Dean Kiser takes readers on an unforgettable journey as he recounts his childhood with a wide-eyed innocence that illustrates the resiliency of the human spirit.

Orphan Has Many Parents, An. Phil Craft & Stan Friedland. 1998. 235p. KTAV Publishing House. From Booklist: Craft and Friedland were raised in the Pride of Judea Children’s Home, an orphanage in Brooklyn, during the Depression. Craft’s mother died in childbirth. He was sent to an infant home for five years, a time filled with “indescribable terror and misery.” Craft was then transferred to the Judea Home in 1932, where he stayed for 14 years. Here Craft found the adults and peers that became the family he so desperately wanted and needed. Friedland, then nine, and his older brother were sent to Judea Home in 1940 after running away from a foster home where they had been abused for three years. Friedland spent seven years in the home. These two authors recall their daily lives, including sleeping arrangements, food and clothing provisions, sports activities, religious studies, and music instruction. They remember the caring parent figures who ran the Jewish orphanage and the colorful crew of fellow orphans. This is a remarkable memoir, both entertaining and moving. — George Cohen

Orphan in New York City, An: Life with a Thousand Brothers & Sisters. Seymour Siegel, DSW, with Laura Edwards, PhD. 2000. 520p. Xlibris Corp. An Orphan in New York City is about survival. When immigrant parents died or could no longer financially or emotionally support their children, benevolent Jews came to the rescue. This is the story of life at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum with a thousand brothers and sisters during the Great Depression. About the Author: Dr. Seymour Siegel is a licensed Clinical Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist. He has received diplomate status in clinical social work, professional psychotherapy, and clinical hypnotherapy. His forty-year career includes twenty years as Executive Director of Jewish and Family Services in Southern New Jersey, co-founding a transitional residency service for individuals with mental illness, and serving on the NJ Board of Marriage Counselor Examiners. He has taught at Rutgers and made presentations to varied groups at varied times. He has appeared on radio and television talk shows and initiated and facilitated a men’s group on “The Wounding and Healing of Men.” For his own healing, Dr. Siegel has written a book about his decade during the depression years in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City.

Jean Paton 1908-2002

Orphan Voyage. Ruthena Hill Kittson (pseudonym of Jean Paton). 1968. 259p. Vantage Press. This is a book about adoption, as seen through the eyes of a large group of adopted people living in Michigan who were visited by the author in the course of three trips to the state in 1955. Speaking to a fellow-adoptee, and thus frankly, without apology or the need to explain themselves, their stories are authentic and revealing. The book also includes much about the history of adoption in the U.S., literary expression of orphanhood, and some suggestions about what needs to be done to give adoptees a greater sense of self-worth. The subjects addressed include the telling, or not, of a child that he is an adoptee, and, if so, at what age, and how? Because so many adoptions are concerned with illegitimacy, there are matters like telling others-natural half-brothers and sisters, for instance; or the matter of the parent who has given a child for adoption, never to see him again, but who recants.

Orphaned, Fostered & Adopted. Marissa Kline-Gonzales. 2009. 176p. Xlibris Corp. A true memoir of a child who had seen and experienced it all before age nine, living in the third-world country of the Philippines, her family succumbed to poverty. Her birth mother died when she was seven and was separated from her siblings that she loves. She was put in two foster homes, where one based their child rearing in superstitions, blaming her for every bad thing that happened. She was also put in two orphanages, where she was later adopted by an American couple. She writes of her growing experiences from a girl to a young lady while living in the countryside of Pennsylvania. Life was not easy for this young girl learning the language, culture, and the people around her. Read it to believe it. She will touch your heart. This book will make you realize what she went through as an orphan, foster and adopted child. You will also learn of her struggle to be happy and how she manages to get through her trials and find real love. About the Author: Marissa Kline-Gonzales lives in Bayonne, NJ, with her husband, Al. They were married August of 2006. After graduating from high school in 1998, she went to Word of Life Bible Institute for a year. Now she is a flight attendant for an airline and annually visits her birth family in the Philippines. She not only sees her family but also visits the orphanages where she grew up. Her love for those children will never diminish for she was once like them.

Orphans. Ollie Kirby. 2000. 214p. Xlibris Corp. The story begins in Sedro Woolley, WA, with the deaths of Lydia and Joseph, leaving six children. Their father wants them to go live with his sister in Canada. When they arrive there are already several children in this family. Soon the children are in Kit Carson , CO. About the Author: Ollie Kirby is the seventh of eight children. While growing up she heard little bits and pieces of events that took place long before she was born. Each time she heard a different version it made her want to find out what really happened. So she embarked on a quest to separate the facts from the fiction.

Orphans’ Nine Commandments, The: A Memoir. William Roger Holman. Foreword by Ted Blevins. 2007. 238p. Texas Christian University Press. When Roger Bechan was six, his mother packed his suitcase and told him they were going to Oklahoma City to visit an uncle. Instead, she took him to the Oklahoma Society for the Friendless, where he began a long journey through three orphanages and several foster homes. With all the color of the 1930s, this is a story of survival within an impersonal child-care system, a story filled with vivid characters, pathos, surprising humor, and the tenacity of a young boy who longs for a normal home and can’t understand why his mother abandoned him or who his father is. No wonder he and his orphan friends omit the tenth commandment: to “honor your father and mother.” As a teenager, the boy finds a home with a supportive couple in a small Oklahoma oil town. Roger Bechan becomes William Holman, who obtains degrees from two universities, marries and raises three sons, and becomes the youngest director of the San Francisco Public Library and an award-winning book designer. Late in life, he discovers the identity of his father—and a new family. About the Author: William Holman served as Head Librarian, Pan American University; Director of the Rosenberg Library in Galveston; Director of the San Francisco Library; and Professor, The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas. He is a mentor for the Orphan Foundation of America and has represented the group on national television.

Orphan’s Song, An. Jean Becker. 2004. 276p. Authorhouse. Little Jean’s life shatters on Pearl Harbor Day, when her mother, just 35, dies of pneumonia. Seven-year-old Jean and her three sisters are thrust into an unknown orphanage life, when her father says, “I’ll be back soon.” So much for promises. Struggling through hardships, the resilient orphans look for sunshine in a world of darkness. Worries of separation and fears about the future cloud Jean’s childhood. But she never loses hope, wishing for things other children take for granted. Eventually her wishes are fulfilled.

Other Face of the Moon, The: Finding My Indian Family. Asha Miró. 2008. 244p. Jaico Publishing House. At the age of seven years old Asha Miró was living in an orphanage in India. Then one day a Spanish couple from Barcelona who had already adopted one child chose Asha to complete their family. Now twenty years later, Asha is a woman. She’d always talked about her homeland with her parents and knew that one day she would return, now that day has come. This was no ordinary trip for Asha, she learns about her past and gets to meet the nuns who took care of her as a child. Through conversations she begins to realise what life might have been like had she not been adopted. Slowly she uncovers the truth about her birth family and reclaims the Indian part of herself. Then, as she tries to fill in the remaining gaps in the mystery, she meets the sister she never knew she had—the other Asha living in an Indian village. Their meeting becomes a breathtaking account of the ’other side’ of her life. Asha Miró’s heartfelt tale of self discovery will be a great companion to all those who’ve yet to undertake such a journey and adoptive parents to be can learn much from her adopted family who’s love and forethought make her jouney so much easier.

Other Side of My Life, The. D Gary Deatherage. 1991. 218p. Winston-Derek Publishers. From the Back Cover: The Other Side of My Life is a story of amazing and intriguing facts brought to light by one man’s search for true identity. Through his investigation, Gary Deatherage discovers he was adopted shortly after birth by Joan Crawford, with whom he lived for almost six months until his natural mother demanded his return. The results of his search also lead to hints of his natural father’s connection to the Sicilian Mafia. About the Author: With a degree from Southern Oregon College and three years’ experience as a field artillery officer, D. Gary Deatherage began a career in accounting in civil government and later personnel management. He now resides in Frankfurt, West Germany, and serves as a personnel manager for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.

Out East of Aline: An Adoption Memoir. Rex L Wilson. 2000. 381p. Uncommon Buffalo Press. A valiant little boy, orphaned at four and adopted at five, struggles to be accepted as a normal kid in a rural Oklahoma community during the 1930s. This is a community where everyone knows evrybody else and where common knowledge holds that children adopted from the orphans’ home always go bad and end up in jail. His adopted parents are basically kind and well-meaning but they have no idea of what the boy is experiencing, his fears of being sent back to the orphans’ home, his desperate wanting to belong. Blessed with a remarkable intelligence, curiosity, and resilence, the boy learns to adapt to his new world and is helped by teachers and friends at Round Grove School. By the time he graduates from the eighth grade, he as come to grips with his adoption, and has learned valuable lessons that will assist him in later life. Out East of Aline is not only the story of one boy’s adoption as told from a child’s perspective, but offers new insights into daily life in rural Oklahoma during the Depression years. About the Author: Rex Wilson is a retired archeologist with the National Park Service. He and his wife Susan live in Richmond, Virginia.

Out of My Arms, But Never Out of My Heart. Doris Dunn Smith, PhD. 2002. 183p. PublishAmerica. Never Out of My Heart is the personal heartrending account of an adoptee’s struggles in the search for her roots. Doris and her twin brother, David, were born in 1933 in North Carolina and given up for adoption by their biological mother. After David’s death, resulting from kidney complications, Dr. Doris Smith embarked on her quest to secure the medical information necessary for the health of her children and grandchildren. Never Out of My Heart describes the roadblocks in Dr. Smith’s path. Despite setbacks at every turn, it was with a determination of faith in God that she ultimately was to gain the information that was rightfully hers. Dr. Smith’s actual meeting with her biological mother and her biological father’s family will never be forgotten by readers. Never Out of My Heart is Dr. Smith’s touching tribute to both her biological and adoptive parents; one set gave her life; the other provided the environment and nourishment so that her life could prosper and flourish [Compiler’s Note: This story has been previously related in the author’s other books, A Limb of Your Tree: An Adopted Twin’s Search (1984) and A Daughter’s Return to Her Roots: An Adopted Twin’s Search (1997)].

Out of My Tree. Hawood D Giles. 1982. 276p. Philosophical Library. “Jamie” (who speaks for the author), realizing early on that his caretakers are not his true parents, is unable to take the pride he sees others take in their natural heritage, and has to fight his adoptive parents’ attempts to keep the circumstances of his birth hidden. The book is also a gripping critique of the instution of adoption.

Out There Somewhere: The True Story of an Adoptee’s Search for Her Biological Heritage. Jane Edith Park. 2007. 76p. Authorhouse. As an adopted child, I soon realized my life was good. I didn’t feel abandoned by the birth parents I never knew. I was just a few days old when my adoptive parents took me to my new home, a small town in Ohio. When I was quite young my adoptive mother told me that my biological mother was 13-years-old when I was born, one of the few facts she knew. Who were these people? Did I look like them? Do I have brothers and sisters? After I married and had children, I questioned what should my two children know about my side of their biological heritage. This is the story of my incredible search and the amazing answers I found to very old questions. Little did I know that due to fictitious information on my birth certificate, and many dead-ends, it would take over 11 years before I would meet my birth parents and 10 siblings! As you will read, it was the slightest event that brought us together. Should my story give another searcher the ambition to never lose faith in searching, even when much time passes with no answers, then my purpose for writing will be fulfilled.

Outer Search/Inner Journey: An Orphan & Adoptee’s Quest. Peter F Dodds. 1997. 280p. Aphrodite Publishing Co. Outer Search\Inner Journey is the first book written by a German-born adoptee on the subject of international adoption and has received critical acclaim in national publications. With growing numbers of Americans adopting overseas, Peter wrote Outer Search\Inner Journey to show the complexities of international adoption. Written in a flowing, narrative style that vividly illustrates the emotional and psychological aspects of lost language, culture and heritage on the foreign adoptee. Especially valuable for adoption and mental health professionals working with parents who have adopted from Russia, Rumania and other east European countries. Outer Search\Inner Journey sheds light on the long-term effects of children who have been institutionalized. Peter, relinquished to a German orphanage at age one, spent 17 months in the institution prior to his adoption. The book chronicles his life from age five to 35. Everyone touched by adoption can benefit from reading the book. Adoptees will know they aren’t alone in questioning where they come from and have feelings validated about the need to search for biological parents. Birth mothers will learn how a child surrendered for adoption thought and felt about the woman who brought him in to the world. Parents who have, or are considering, adoption will gain insight on children’s trauma stemming from events that took place prior to the adoption. For the general or non-adoptee reader—Outer Search\Inner Journey is every person’s search for belonging. Those who have felt lonely, isolated or abandoned will identify with Peter’s story. But the book’s most valuable benefit is that it is a moving and inspirational story offering a message of hope to anyone who has suffered the pains of loss and separation.

Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood. Wayson Choy. 1999. 342p. Viking (Canada). Three weeks before his 57th birthday, novelist Wayson Choy received a mysterious phone message during his publicity tour for his novel, The Jade Peony. When he called the number, he was greeted by the sounds of Vancouver’s old Chinatown, and an older woman’s voice telling him that she had just seen his mother on the streetcar. Wayson politely informed the caller that she must be mistaken, since his mother had died two decades earlier. “No, no, not our mother,” the voice insisted; “your real mother.” As it turned out, the woman on the streetcar was not Wayson Choy’s mother. But the woman on the phone was right about one thing: he had, in fact, been adopted. And so, three weeks before his 57th birthday, Wayson Choy became an orphan. This astonishing revelation inspires the beautifully-wrought, sensitively told Paper Shadows, the story of a Chinatown past lost and found. From his early experiences with the ghosts of old Chinatown, to his discovery later in life of deeply held family secrets that crossed the ocean from mainland China to Gold Mountain, this multi-layered portrait of a child’s world reveals uncanny similarities between the colorful secrets that enrich Wayson Choy’s award-winning The Jade Peony and the subsequently discovered secrets of his own life. About the Author: Wayson Choy was raised in Vancouver. His novel, The Jade Peony was selected as one of the American Library Association Notable Books of 1998 and shared the Trillium Book Award for best book of 1996 with Margaret Atwood. Paper Shadows was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Charles Taylor Literary Nonfiction Award, and the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize. He is a full time professor at Humber College, Toronto.

Patty’s Journey: From Orphanage to Adoption & Reunion. Donna Scott Norling & Priscilla Ferguson Clement. 1996. 208p. University of Minnesota Press. In 1936, four-year-old Patty Pearson was taken from her parents and placed in the State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children in Owatonna, Minnesota. Once at Owatonna, Patty was separated from her sister and brother, was sexually abused by the school janitor, and contracted tuberculosis. She was placed in two foster homes where she endured a variety of emotional and physical abuses. Eventually adopted at the age of seven, she would not see her sister again for more than 30 years. Through her late childhood and teen years Patty learned to negotiate the shoals of life as an adoptee—striving for full membership in the family, repressing her anger at being forbidden to discuss her past, wondering what became of her sister, brother, mother, and father. As a young woman coming of age, she grew to appreciate the good things her adoptive family offered her even while holding on to a sense of self they wanted her to suppress. Patty’s Journey is a richly textured account of people struggling through the Great Depression and war years, but it also illuminates the customs and small victories of that era, often in surprising and humorous ways. Although it provides a disturbing look at child-rearing practices in state orphanages at the time, it is ultimately a redemptive tale of one woman’s bravery in facing her past—and moving ahead toward a future that included both her selves.

Pieces of the Pearl: Memoirs of a Foster Child’s Triumphant Transformation. Teresa Ann Winton. 2009. 196p. Tate Publishing. Pieces of the Pearl: Memoirs of a Foster Child’s Triumphant Transformation tells the true-life story of Teresa Ann Winton, who invites you to journey into the depths of her soul where a vulnerable and profoundly sad little girl once lived. Teresa’s unstable home left her exposed to abuse, poverty, and neglect. Foster care, a system meant to help the helpless, brought even more trauma and loss. But in spite of it all, Teresa forged ahead, refusing to succumb to despair. In this poignant story, the author interlaces poetry and narrative, sharing her joys and sorrows, her triumphs and tears. Pieces of the Pearl: Memoirs of a Foster Child’s Triumphant Transformation is a search for wholeness and reconciliation, one whose spiritual message of undying faith, hope, and love will leave readers inspired. A story like Pieces of the Pearl must be told. The teeming masses of humanity must be exposed to a true story of “can do.” People must see real faith at work—a faith that is not ignorant of the ugliness of man, but does not blame that ugliness on God. In the fires of tragedy, people of bitterness or heroism are born, and I am proud to say that I know this hero, Teresa Winton. — Phil Arnold, Louisville, Kentucky

Prairie Son. Dennis M Clausen. 1999. 288p. Mid-List Press. When his father was dying of cancer, novelist Clausen (Ghost Lover) suggested that the “impossibly distant” wanderer write his life story to reconcile a life marred by failed relationships. Lloyd Clausen filled three legal pads with a summary of his experiences, which his son spun into this powerfully sentimental narrative of Lloyd’s hard-luck coming-of-age on the Minnesota prairie during the Depression. Striving to preserve his father’s humble, plainspoken voice, Clausen fashions an “autobiography” that descends too often into bromides and cracker-barrel philosophizing. But not even the press to find lessons behind every anecdote can dilute the undeniable power of Lloyd’s tragic story. In many ways, it’s an archetypal account of Depression-era hardship: evil bankers extort sexual favors from farmwives, families draw together during hard times. But Lloyd’s life was harsher than most. Adopted by a poor farm couple, he suffers through a childhood that is a litany of Dickensian abuse and inhumanity. Banned from the house by day and locked in the cellar while his mother entertained a lover, forced to run the farm while his father played cards or fished, beaten at home and at school, he grows up little more than a beast of burden. His closest emotional attachment is to Buster and Minnie, the farm dogs he considers his “real adoptive parents” and protectors. The heartbreaking frankness with which Clausen relates his father’s quest to find his birth mother and establish a place in the wider world elevates this chronicle from mere bathos to something more like a testament to one boy’s heroic, if flawed, struggle to maintain his humanity in the face of overwhelming odds. — Publishers Weekly

Prairie Tale. Melissa Gilbert. 2009. 384p. Simon Spotlight Entertainment. To fans of the hugely successful television series Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Gilbert grew up in a fantasy world with a larger-than-life father, friends and family she could count on, and plenty of animals to play with. Children across the country dreamed of the Ingalls’ idyllic life—and so did Melissa. She was a natural on camera, but behind the scenes, life was more complicated. Adopted as a baby into a legendary show business family, Melissa wrestled with questions about her identity and struggled to maintain an image of perfection her mother created and enforced. Only after years of substance abuse, dysfunctional relationships, and made-for-television movies did she begin to figure out who she really was. With candor and humor, the cherished actress traces her complicated journey from buck-toothed Laura “Half-pint” Ingalls to Hollywood starlet, wife, and mother. She partied with the Brat Pack, dated heartthrobs like Rob Lowe and bad boys like Billy Idol, and began a self-destructive pattern of addiction and codependence. Left in debt after her first marriage, and struggling to create some sense of stability, she eventually realized that her career on television had earned her popularity, admiration, and love from everyone but herself. Through hard work, tenacity, sobriety, and the blessings of a solid marriage, Melissa has accepted her many different identities and learned to laugh, cry, and forgive in new ways. Women everywhere may have idolized her charming life on Little House on the Prairie, but Melissa’s own unexpectedly honest, imperfect, and down-to-earth story is an inspiration. About the Author: Melissa Gilbert starred as Laura Ingalls on the hit television show Little House on the Prairie. Post-Little House, Gilbert appeared in numerous Lifetime movies and recently served as president of the Screen Actors Guild for two terms. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Children’s Hospice and and Palliative Care Coalition, where she works directly with chronically and terminally ill children to provide them with care and comfort. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Bruce Boxleitner.

Princess Found, A: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, & the Daughter Who Connected Them All. Sarah Culberson & Tracy Trivas. 2009. 368p. St Martin’s Press. Sarah Culberson was adopted one year after her birth by a loving, white, West Virginian couple and was raised in the United States with little knowledge of her ancestry. Though raised in a loving family, Sarah wanted to know more about the birth parents that had given her up. In 2004, she hired a private investigator to track down her biological father. When she began her search, she never imagined what she would discover or where that information would lead her: she was related to African royalty, a ruling Mende family in Sierra Leone and that she is considered a mahaloi, the child of a Paramount Chief, with the status like a princess. What followed was an unforgettably emotional journey of discovery of herself, a father she never knew, and the spirit of a war-torn nation. A Princess Found is a powerful, intimate revelation of her quest across the world to learn of the chiefdom she could one day call her own.

Privilege of Youth, The: A Teenager’s Story of Longing for Acceptance & Friendship. David J Pelzer. 2004. 240p. Dutton. The #1 New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author who is a shining example of what overcoming adversity really means now shares the final stage of his uplifting journey that has touched the lives of millions. From A Child Called “It” to The Lost Boy, from A Man Named Dave to Help Yourself, Dave Pelzer’s inspirational books have helped countless others triumph over hardship and misfortune. In The Privilege of Youth, he supplies the missing chapter of his life: as a boy on the threshold of adulthood. With his usual sensitivity and insight, he recounts the relentless taunting he endured from bullies; but he also describes the joys of learning and the thrill of making his first real friends—some of whom he still shares close relationships with today. He writes about the simple pleasures of exploring a neighborhood he was just beginning to get to know while trying to forget the hell waiting for him at home. From high school to a world beyond the four walls that were his prison for so many years, The Privilege of Youth charts this crucial turning point in Dave Pelzer’s life. This brave and compassionate memoir from the man who has journeyed far will inspire a whole new generation of readers. About the Author: Dave Pelzer is the #1 New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of A Child Called “It”, The Lost Boy, A Man Named Dave, and Help Yourself. He travels extensively throughout the country speaking to thousands of people about overcoming obstacles in their lives. He has appeared on Oprah and The Montel Williams Show, among other national media.

Questions Adoptees Are Asking: About Beginnings, About Birth Family, About Searching, About Finding Peace. Sherrie Eldridge. 2009. 288p. NavPress. From the Back Cover: Do you ever:
•   Wonder if your birth mother ever thinks about you?
•   Feel uncomfortable talking to your parents about your birth family?
•   Doubt your worth?
•   Wonder if your life was a mistake?
•   Think that others don’t “get it” about adoption?
Sherrie Eldridge interviews more than seventy adoptees to bring your questions to light, find the answers, and create connection among adult adoptees. Discover freedom in the unity and in your unique life purpose as you realize your value in life. For five years, Twenty Life-Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make has affected the lives of adoptees and their families. This updated edition goes deeper with study questions for support groups or personal use. About the Author: Sherrie Eldridge is an internationally known speaker and author of books about adoption. Her best seller, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wished Their Adoptive Parents Knew, is in its ninth year of publication and has sold more than 130,000 copies. By blending biblical truths with life-changing principles, Sherrie helps parents see adoption from their child’s viewpoint. Her passion is to deepen relationships between parents and their adopted children. Other books by the same author: Forever Fingerprints: An Amazing Discovery for Adopted Children (2007); and Twenty Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed (2009). Visit the Author’s website.

Quiet Riot, The. Kathie Epstein. 1976. 126p. Fleming H Revell. Kathie Epstein is the maiden name of Kathie Lee Gifford. Included is a foreword by Anita Bryant. Kathie is just starting out on a singing career that promises to be fabulously successful. A former Junior Miss Pageant entrant, secretary, household aide and adopted daughter to Anita Bryant and Bob Green, talented performer, beloved friend, sparkling witness for Jesus, Kathie epitomizes all that is good and right with American youth.

Received in Grace: The Search for a Birth Family. Norman M Carson. 2001. 127p. Writers Club Press. A book describing the mystery and thrill of Carson’s search for his birth family, from dead ends to the reward of entering the family itself. “All birth records are sealed and held perpetually to ensure that the law of confidentiality is not breached.” Those disheartening words Norman Carson encountered on every hand as he searched for his birth family. Carson persisted for two years despite being continually rebuffed. As an evangelical Christian he was struck by the fact that his adoption might illustrate the doctrine of adoption through Christ into the family of God. Received in Grace details Carson’s childhood in his adoptive family; his search for his biological family, begun when he was 62; the many byways and dead ends he encountered; and the rich reward that became his in the birth family itself. In his story Carson describes in intimate detail his childhood in the Kansas of the 1930s, the pleasures and difficulties of being a preacher’s kid, and finally the fascinating history and rich variety of personalities that he discovered in his birth family. Anyone seriously considering searching for his/her roots will be caught up in the mystery and thrill of Carson’s search.

Reconnected to My Bellybutton. Joy Budensiek. 2001. Joy Budensiek. Rollercoaster journey of an adoptee searching for her family and roots. Reconnected to My Bellybutton is a positive adoption story which resonates with one miracle after another as Joy actually begins to search for her roots. In both her life and in this story you will see the obvious care and design of our loving Heavenly Father.

Reconstructing Stephen: Why Adoption Hurts. Stephen Francis. 2006. 185p. Lulu.com. At 39, Stephen Francis is fast approaching mid-life crisis. Depressed and subject to anxiety, panic attacks, exhaustion, burnout and intermittent bouts of alcoholism, his life is going into freefall. Only when he reaches his lowest point, and seeks the help of a counsellor, is he able to address the roots of his malaise, which lie in his early life as an adopted child. In this outspoken autobiography the author uncovers, with unerring frankness and honesty, the truth about his own life and that of the little spoken of – and virtually taboo—subject of adoption from the point of view of an adoptee who feels no sense of belonging to his adoptive parents. As he retraces the path that led to his shattering discovery that he is adopted—and realises that the sense of alienation he has felt all his life is grounded in fact rather than paranoia, Stephen describes the inevitable breakdown and deconstruction of his identity and the slow healing process of reconstruction that can then begin.

Reflection Pond. Jaiya John. 2007. 228p. Soul Water Rising. A medictation on identity, culture, and healingin children separatedfrom oriinal family. Millions of our world’s children are forced through the curtain of separation from original family. Among the numerous causes are poverty, abuse, neglect, natural disaster, epidemic, immigration, incarceration, addiction, war, genocide, oppression, and child labor. While each experience is its own, all such separations cleave the child heart and mind into a common root wound of vacancy and drift. In the face of such woundedness, our children have the power for healing and growth waiting within them. Every aspect of their lives is affected by an often solitary quest for beauty and belonging. We who raise and serve these displaced young, through our embrace, are a vital factor in their ultimate healing. Jaiya John has shared time with thousands of uprooted children through his human relations work. Reflection Pond offers us his personal meditation, a looking glass for what these youth have whispered into his spirit. They have shared their need for reflection ponds: people, places, and experiences through which their own beauty and purpose are reflected back to them. Through allegory and parable, poetry and prose, Jaiya John draws from the natural world around us to unveil the magical inner life of children and youth. Here is a revelatory positioning of the human mirror. In its face we glimpse magnificence. By the Same Author: Beautiful (2008), Legendary (2008) and Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib (2002).

Relative Origins: Famous Foster & Adopted People. Maria & Aileen Dever. 1992. National Book Co. Each year roughly 150,000 children are adopted in the United States. There are approximately 2 million adopted children under the age of 18. Although about most are adopted by relatives, and most work out well, many children still harbor fears or concerns about being different or even abandoned. Anxiety is normal, but to help adopted children, and their parents, put aside those fears and go on to lead the most productive lives possible, the authors compiled this book of more than a hundred famous adopted individuals. From champion athletes, authors, and actors, to scientists and salesmen, teachers and preachers, Relative Origins provides examples of adopted children who went on to lead happy and successful lives. For most readers it will serve to show that adopted children are no different than the rest of us; for adopted children themselves the book provides examples and role models of people who conquered their fears, and that if they have confidence in themselves there is nothing they cannot accomplish. Some famous adopted people were: Edward Albee; Sir Alexander Bustamante; George Washington Carver; Jacqueline Cochran; William Lloyd Garrison; Evonne Goolagong; Alexander Hamilton; Scott Hamilton; John Lennon; Hugh Leonard; Gregory Louganis; Lue Gim Gong; Catherine McCauley; James Albert Michener; Carlos Montezuma; Moses; Jim Palmer; Edgar Allan Poe; Eleanor Roosevelt; Sir Henry Morton Stanley; R. David Thomas; Maria von Trapp; Edgar Wallace; Phillis Wheatley; Daniel Hale Williams; George Hamilton; Gordon Aberdeen; Jean Le Rond d’Alembert; Josephine Antoine; Aristotle; Ingrid Bergman; John Green Brady; Angie Elizabeth Brooks; Rosie Casals; Catherine I; Nicolas Sebastien Roche Chamfort; Jean Baptiste Charbonneau; Edward Day Collins; Countée Porter Cullen; Dalai Lama; Alexandra Danilova; Peter Duchin; Peter Francisco; Sir Matthew Hale; John Hancock; Deborah Ann Harry (“Blondie” Lead Singer); Joseph Haydn; Lemuel Haynes; Herbert Hoover; Langston Hughes; Stonewall Jackson; Steven Paul Jobs; Frederick Mckinley Jones; Benito Juá:rez; Edmund Kean; Rudyard Kipling; John Mercer Langston; Robert Laurent; Malcolm X; Nelson Mandela; Harry Martinson; Stan Mikita; Marilyn Monroe; Anthony Newley; Gabriel Pascal; Pierre Esprit Radisson; Harold Robbins; John Baptist Rossi; Jean Jacques Rousseau; William Tecumseh Sherman; Vishwanath Pratap Singh; Robyn Smith; Dame Kiri (Janette) Te Kanawa; Giovanni Battista Tiepolo; Leo Tolstoy; Francois Truffaut; Maxime Weygand; Flip Wilson; Louisa May Alcott; Mildred Ames; Frank Baum; Anne Bernays; Rose Blue; David Budbill; Frances Hodgson Burnett; Betsy Cromer Byars; Helen Fern Daringer; Charles Dickens; Judith Guest; Nan Hayden; Roberta Hughey; Louis L’Amour; Rutgers van der Loeff; George Eliot; Lucy Maud Montgomery; Thomas Meehan; Eleanor Porter; Jim Razzi (adapter); Ovida Sebestyen; Roberta Silman; Mark Twain; Jean Webster; T. H. White.

Remembrance Past & Present: A Story. Otterman J. Hermen. 1992. 614p. Vantage Press. Autobiography of a former foster child.

Reunion: The Search for My Birth Family. Madelene Ferguson Allen. 1992. 228p. Invercauld Publications (Canada). An account of the frustrations, tactics and victories of a seven year search in Ontario. An invaluable collection of hints, ideas of where to find information, how to organize it once you have it, and then HOW to draw conclusions. Twelve known reunions as a direct result of this book.

Revolt in Paradise. K’Tut Tantri. 1960. 305p. Heinemann (London). In the early 1930s, a young British-born woman left Hollywood, where she had been working in the film industry, and set sail for Bali on impulse. It was a step which was to lead to fifteen years of a new exotic life, first as the adopted daughter of a rajah, then as a prisoner of the Japanese, and lastly as one of the leading figures in the Indonesian revolt against the Dutch. On arrival in Bali, she was led by chance to the palace of a rajah, and became friends with him and his western educated son. Soon the rajah had adopted her as his daughter (K’tut means ’fourth-born’). Despite opposition from the Dutch authorities, K’tut stayed on, learned to wear the native costume, studied the language, lived among the poorest kampongs, attending the dances, feasts and sacrifices, until she came to think of the Indonesians as her own people. Later she built and ran an unique hotel, called Sound of the Sea, where servants were all Balinese artists and the guests included distinguished guests such as the Duff Coopers. War came, and K’tut Tantri’s paradise was shattered. When the Japanese arrived, she was imprisoned, tortured by the Kempetai (the Japanese Gestapo) and endured eighteen months of solitary confinement. On release, she weighed only sixty five pounds. As though that were not adventure enough, she remained to take part in the Indonesian struggle for independence. She joined the hill guerillas in Java, broadcast for the freedom radio stations, undertook a hair-raising series of espionage and blockade-running missions, and came to know intimately the leaders of the revolution, particularly President Sukarno himself. At one time the Dutch put a price of fifty thousand guilders on her head. Her fame spread until she became known throughout the Far East by the nickname of Surabaya Sue—a fact she only learnt when she broke through the Dutch blockade to enlist outside support for the Indonesian cause. Revolt in Paradise describes both the traditional beauty of pre-war Balinese life and the volcanic upheavals which war and revolution brought. K’tut Tantri’s life was packed with exciting and dangerous incidents, but, even more than by the story itself, the reader will be held by the indomitable and unusual personality of the woman who tells it.

Right to Know Who You Are, The: Reform of Adoption Law With Honesty, Openness, and Integrity. Keith C Griffith, ed. Foreword by Dirck W Brown. 300p. Invercauld Publications. (Canada). Organized into eighteen chapters ranging from open adoption to adoption law reform, The Right to Know Who You Are presents an encyclopedic overview of the life-long adoption experience. Each topic is well-documented, encouraging the reader to turn to other sources for further exploration or research. About the Editor: Keith Griffith was in the forefront of successful reform adoption laws New Zealand which first effort anywhere world to secure open records legislation. He is an adopted person who has published four books on and several articles social work journals. Through research for the Adult Adoption Bill (New Zealand), he compiled 16 volumes of material on New Zealand adoption. New Zealand Adoption Handbook was funded by the Law Foundation and supervised at the Victoria Law School, Wellington, New Zealand. He is a well known speaker in the U.S.A. and Canada.

Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser. Rita Mae Brown. 1997. 480p. Bantam Books. A novelist’s autobiography shows that truth is not always as much fun as fiction. Rita Mae Brown—one of the first openly gay celebrities in America, as well as one of the founders of the Second Wave women’s movement—has had a life worth writing. She has produced numerous popular novels and screenplays, and had lovers as famous and difficult as herself—Martina Navratilova, Fannie Flagg, and Judy Nelson. Given away at birth by her teenage mother, she was raised by relatives; her adoptive mother was the “Juts” made famous in Brown’s novels. Juts comes alive in this memoir, too, as does her impossible sister, Aunt Mimi. The book offers a touching evocation of a southern tomboy’s childhood, as well as unsparing descriptions of early feminism and of the peculiar burdens of gay celebrity. — Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Roastbeef’s Promise: When Your Dad’s Dying Wish Is to Have His Ashes Sprinkled in Each State, What’s a Son to Do?. David Jerome. 2009. 336p. Smack Books, LLC. When Jim Roastbeef Hume embarks on a quest to sprinkle his father’s ashes in each of the forty-eight contiguous states, he has no idea that a series of bizarre and ridiculous adventures await. But nothing will deter him from fulfilling the promise he made to his dying father—not a brief incarceration in Iowa or a punctured lung in South Dakota. As he travels across the country, he picks up numerous new friends, presides over the ultimate party, poses as a lesbian s boyfriend, and gives away a very pregnant bride in a Las Vegas wedding. And who could have dreamed that somewhere amidst the craziness of dropping ashes from a crop duster and finding Elvis’s toenail, Roastbeef would stumble upon a lucrative new career? About the Author: David Jerome has written jokes for Jay Leno on The Tonight Show and performed his own monologue on the ABC late night talk show Into the Night with Rick Dees. From 1994 to 1996, he wrote and published a comedy newspaper, The Irreverent Times. Under the pen name James E. Spamm Jr., he authored a collection of humorous fan letters to celebrities and other notables called I’m a Big Fan.

Rose’s Story: A Survivor of Our Social Services. Rose. 1991. 112p. Families International. Rose’s story is about a girl who slipped through the social service system. She was unwanted by her mom, dad, and step-mom, so she was thrown from foster home to foster home. She was physically abused and sexually abused in these homes. Once she finally found a foster home that loved her, her parents would not let them adopt her. She then was sent to a psychiatric ward where she lived untill she was 17.

Rules of Illegacy: Shame on Me...: To Be Told or Not to Be Told.....A Question of Ethics & Circumstance. Victoria Lynne. 2008. 124p. Xlibris Corp. Born in San Diego County in the 1950s; raised in an upper middle class residential coastal paradise, known as Point Loma, located on the peninsula in southern California. Victoria Lynne’s childhood memories found her always the outcast; never understanding why. Adopted from birth to a loving family, apparently so frightened of losing this chance at parenting; choosing to uphold this vow of secrecy, at all costs; ultimately taking it to their graves. This young woman was launched into obsession; the paper chase of a lifetime! The years devoted to the search for truth and identity became the undertaking that no one could ever prepare for; discovering what lies beneath the surface; lies for protection. There were no directions for the road to recovery. An inspiring true story of adoption betrayal: “to be told, or not to be told”—That decision is yours.