The memoir of a young lady searching to find her happiness.

From the Back Cover: Adopted at age five, author Elaine Pinkerton hid the fact that her original parents didn’t want her. At age ten, she found comfort in keeping a diary and escaped into the world of books. Now, years later, Pinkerton revisits four decades of diaries and offers a look at her life and what it meant to her to be adopted.

Based on those forty diaries, she shares her story in The Goodbye Baby. With diary excerpts included, as well as narrative, Pinkerton tells about her journey through the thorny issues of adoption, a search for healing, and an inspiring finale.

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About the Author: Elaine Pinkerton is a long-time resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition to writing for magazines and newspapers, she is the author of several nonfiction and fiction books. She is a world traveler, educator focused on working with young children, labyrinth facilitator, and an avid hiker.

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By the Same Author: Santa Fe Blogger: Life After Adoption Recovery (2014, self-published)l and All the Wrong Places (2017, Pocol Press), among others.

In 1952, Susan Tickner and her brother Roy were sent to Australia by their mother under the Child Migrant Scheme. Sue and Roy’s mother had remarried, and she had been bullied by their new stepfather into getting rid of them, since he only wanted his own children. As you read Sue’s story, from the traumatic arrival in Australia to the effects it was to have on her for the rest of her life, many unanswered questions arise, and it is only in the final denouement that the dust begins to be swept from under the carpet. The authorities of those times had much to answer for. Sue argues that the final revelations would never have come to light if she had not relentlessly pursued her own tempestuous voyage of discovery. On a personal level, Sue has unraveled many tangled threads and sought to come to terms with her cruel childhood.

From the Back Cover: Dear Mama Katherine,

This is your daughter SaraJane.

I know you named me Sequoya at birth and I haven’t seen you since I was ten-years-old. I want you to know that SaraJane is the name my adoptive mother gave me. I was going to look for you as soon as I had the opportunity, but you became an angel before then.

I heard you had been looking for me until the very end. I sure have a story to tell you! A lot has happened since I last saw you. I learned a lot about you. Guess what I found out?

Just let me begin...

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About the Author: Sequoya Griffin is a native of Las Vegas, Nevada. Adopted as a child, she moved to Upstate New York. She spent her childhood years reading as many books as she could get her hands on. It helped to pass the time of what she calls her spiritual confinement. Keeping within her the memories of her early life before her adoption, she knew she’d share her experiences. Goodbye, SaraJane is a personal and emotional accomplishment of hers that took seven years to complete. She is the founder of Key Purpose Books LLC, a publishing and music licensing company of God-given stories. An active participant in CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), her passion is to continue bringing awareness to all aspects of the foster care and adoption system. Her next project is a nonprofit in honor of her mother, Katherine’s Letter, which advocates creative talent direction, financial literacy education and supportive services for current/former foster youth, as well as providing encouragement for parents with children in the system.

From the Dust Jacket: Jane knew she was a war baby because Mummy Grace said all war babies had to drink the treacly black malt from The Clinic every morning. Then Mummy Grace told Jane that she wasn’t her mummy. Her mummy was a lady who lived in Le Tookay. Or was it Cassablanka? Jane told the girls at school that her father had been an English pilot who was killed in the war. Ora sailor drowned at sea. Or an American pilot drowned at sea. She couldn’t remember which; she’d heard so many different stories, added some of her own and liars had to have good memories.

Mummy Grace had a lump of skin that sprouted hairs on her upper lip and she listened to Workers’ Playtime. Madame Lapotaire smelled of perfume and spoke French. In 1957, the woman at the Welfare Office in Ipswich explained that Madame Lapotaire was Jane’s mother and that Jane was to go and live with her in Libya. That made Mummy Grace unhappy. “I’ve done my best by you. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d’ve been in a Home.” So Jane went just for the holidays in those years between starting grammar school and going to drama school. Monsieur Lapotaire wasn’t her father, Lolo was only her half-sister, and her mother was a stranger.

In Libya, people put ice in their drinks and drank whisky instead of Vimto. They had “houseboys” called Ahmed and Mohammed, and affaires. They had a lot more money than Mummy Grace’s pension and listened to Chopin and Charles Aznavour instead of Songs of Praise.

Grace and Favour is a vivid and moving chronicle of childhood, evoking the England of the Fifties and the confusions of growing up illegitimate. A remarkable piece of autobiography, by one of our most outstanding actresses.

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About the Author: Jane Lapotaire was born in Ipswich, trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and then spent two years in the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company. She has been a leading member of the National Theatre both at the Old Vic under Sir Laurence Olivier and on the South Bank. She has played major classical roles for the Nottingham Playhouse, Prospect, and Sir Anthony Quayle’s touring company, Compass. Jane Lapotaire has worked regularly for the Royal Shakespeare Company since 1974, and the RSC production Piaf won her important awards both in the West End and on Broadway.

Her notable television roles include Marie Curie, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth. She recently played a criminal defence barrister in the BBC television series Blind Justice.

She holds a visiting fellowship at Sussex University and teaches at the Actor’s Centre and the British American Drama Academy.

Jane Lapotaire lives in South London with her son.

From the Back Cover: Nedra White has learned in her tortured life that there must be a God. Only God could have saved her from herself. No human being ever did. No human being ever protected her, as a child except her oldest brother Gary Freeman when he could.

Born to a mother she cannot remember, Nedra and six of her siblings were separated when the Michigan Department of Human Services placed them in foster homes or put them up for adoption.

Nedra’s first foster home was a loving one with a nurturing mother, but that mother knew nothing of one older son continually preying on Nedra out in the shed. Surely Nedra thought, she must have been put on earth to be tortured—unless she was already living in hell.

From that first traumatic experience Nedra spent three decades battling the demons of suicide and alcohol until she and her four children were saved by an anonymous angel and placed into the caring hands of her Sister Gail Marie Kendrick LaBarre.

From there she has gone on to search for and finally reunite the six brothers and sisters of hers who were lost and scattered half a century earlier.

Gracie’s Journey Out of Darkness is not only a tribute to Nedra’s own children—who didn’t just give her courage, but who literally kept her alive and to her sister Deborah Gates—it is also a remarkable story of the hope and faith one woman can have in order to finally bring back together her own full family circle.

From the Publisher: The Great Adoptee Search Book was Strauss’s first book. It began when her reunion with her birth family was covered by People magazine. Adoptees from across the country began to call, asking how to do a search. Describing how she’d found her birth relatives took hours, so she decided to commit a few pages to explaining the process. The few pages grew to almost a hundred, and so the little search book (with the big title) was born. Her subsequent search and reunion book, Birthright, was born directly from The Great Adoptee Search Book. An agent in Boston saw the thin tome, and contacted Strauss about doing a proposal, which was eventually purchased by Penguin Books. “One of the most amazing things about that first book,” Strauss recalls, “is when people would call me to let me know they’d read a few pages, tried a few of the suggestions, and found their birth family. One person had met their birth mother within four hours of buying my book. To think of having that kind of an impact on someone’s life was rather awesome.” And the footprint on the cover? “My oldest son was one when he got to be in People magazine because of the reunion. So my youngest son got to have his footprint on the cover of the book.”

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By the Same Author: Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion for Adoptees, Birthparents and Adoptive Parents (1994, Penguin) and Beneath a Tall Tree: A Story About Us (2001, Arete Publishing Co.).

From the Dust Jacket: In this book, Justice Peck tells the whole dramatic, fantastic, sensational story of one of the most famous will cases of our times. He first became interested in the Greer case when it came before his court on appeal. As he reports his own reactions in the introduction:

“I found that reading the record was not a legal chore but an absorbing reading experience. Here in truth was more drama, mystery and conflict, pathos, irony and even humor than one could dream up. The real-life characters—lawyers and witnesses, the woman who bore a son in poverty and obscurity, abandoned him, married into wealth and social prominence, spent her life half in fear and half in hope that her son would turn up, and died leaving a fortune to be sought in search of her heir—were more interesting than characters that might be encountered in fiction.

“The case provided an excellent example of trial lawyers’ work, of their problems in meeting a baffling case, of their resourcefulness, skill and untiring effort in discovering evidence, uncovering the truth and presenting a case in court. Their craftsmanship and creativeness, imagination and integrity, combined with the romance of the case, gave me both a professional pride and a personal pleasure in telling the story.

“It is the story of the search and of the woman behind it, as it unfolded in the courtroom, as the witnesses told it, as the documents* uncovered by the diligent digging of counsel disclosed it. It is also a story of lawyers matching wits for a high stake, of their ingenuity and assiduity, and of what goes on behind the scenes of a court drama.”

Told with actual testimony as the heart of the book, The Greer Case captures, page by page, the mounting tension of the courtroom as a fascinating drama of human behavior is gradually, relentlessly revealed.
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* The vital documents appear in facsimile in The Greer Case.

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About the Author: Justice David W. Peck is Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, First Department, one of the most important courts in the United States. He was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, educated there at Wabash College (Phi Beta Kappa). He took his law degree at Harvard Law School. Early in his career he was Assistant United States Attorney in New York and for ten years a partner in the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell. From 1943 to 1945 he was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, serving as a trial judge. In 1945 he was designated by the Governor as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division and in 1947 as Presiding Justice. He lives in New York, is married and has two sons.

Growing Up Black in White is author Kevin Hofmann’s gift to the American public seeking answers to so many questions about what it is to be raised in a racially diverse household. Born to a white mother and black father in Detroit in 1967, only weeks before the terrible race riots that brought a major city to its knees, the author was taken to a foster home and then adopted by a white minister and his wife, already the parents of three biological children. In this fascinating memoir, Hofmann reveals the difficulties and joys of being part of this family, particularly during a time and in a location where acceptance was tentative and emotions regarding race ran high and hot. Hofmann shares with readers the pressures and joys of being part of a family that navigated through tumultuous waters, and came out the victors in an old and oft-fought battle. This is a book that offers insight, humor, and plenty of hope.

From the Publisher: Growing up in placement takes a toll, not just on the children and adolescents but also on the professionals charged with their care. Judges, policymakers, administrators, probation officers, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, caseworkers, social workers, foster parents, house parents, guardian ad litem, CASA volunteers, child welfare advocates, educators and program staff make critical decisions that can affect a child’s life forever. The more attuned they are to what helps or hinders the development of these vulnerable young people, the more likely they are to make the appropriate decisions required to promote positive placement experiences and healthy adult outcomes. The purpose of this book is to provide child welfare professionals insightful feedback from former clients who grew up in juvenile justice, foster care, orphanage, adoptive and mental health placements. What makes this book particularly instructive derives from the authors credentials. They are college-educated adults who masterfully intertwine their childhood stories with mature perspective and their own professional expertise. The other audiences this book hopes to reach include youth in placement and students who plan on entering careers in child welfare. Children currently in care need to know that others have experienced childhoods as bad as or worse than their own, that they survived and how they did it. Students preparing to work with troubled or dependent young people should learn about a side of life they probably have not experienced before they make decisions that may adversely affect these at risk youth. Sometimes a wide abyss separates theory and reality.

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About the Author: Dr. Waln Brown, Founder & CEO of the William Gladden Foundation, spent his adolescence in a series of out-ot-home placements, including an orphanage, juvenile detention facility, state psychiatric hospital and reform school. A special education student who failed the 9th grade and graduated 187th in a class of 192 students, Waln earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored over 230 publications, including the books The Other Side of Delinquency (Rutgers University Press), The Abandonment of Delinquent Behavior: Promoting the Turnaround (Praeger Publishers) and Why Some Children Succeed Despite the Odds (Praeger Publishers). Prior to founding the William Gladden Foundation in 1983, Waln held positions with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the National Center for Juvenile Justice and the Sonia Shenkman Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago. Dr. Brown marries his personal experience of growing up in multiple placements and overcoming a difficult childhood with decades of researching and writing about the recovery process.

Dr. John Seita understands the challenges facing disconnected young people. Academically challenged students and youth who are in out of home settings, such as foster care, residential care and group care are his specialty. John is a former youth at risk who beat the odds. The court removed John from his mother’s home at eight and he spent the remainder of his youth in multiple foster homes, detention facilities, group care settings and on the streets. Abused and neglected as a child, his journey though children’s institutions and countless foster homes was a litany of degradation and humiliation. Few trainers and speakers have lived in the dependent care system and now share both their insiders view linked with the latest research in positive youth development, resilience, strength-based approaches and brain research. Because of Dr. Seita’s advocacy on behalf of foster children, his alma mater, Western Michigan University, recently developed the John Seita Scholarship to help undergraduate students who have aged out of foster care pursue their educational goals. In 2007, John received the Ruth Massing Foster Care Alumni of the year award through Casey Family Programs. He is the author of In Whose Best Interest?, God is in the Kitchen, Kids Who Outwit Adults and dozens of scholarly articles about foster care.

Born as Carmen Sylvia, into post-World War II Germany, Laural is adopted by Americans working for the CIA. Laural spends her first seven years living near an enchanted park in Frankfurt. Here she encounters a tree spirit with a message. Her life is quickly turned upside down when her family moves to the United States and settles in a small rural fishing village in Wisconsin. Confusion, fear and betrayal surround her. After her adoptive parents pass away, Laural begins unraveling the secrets of her family tree and the mysteries that have surrounded her. Join Laural as she heals herself by facing her deepest fears. When Laural finally realizes that her name, Carmen Sylvia, means “Guardian Tree,” she awakens the ultimate truth within her.

From the Back Cover: It was a tiny scrap of paper, faded and yellow, with answers to my past written all over it.

Why would she save this?

“We thought you might want to find her one day. She sent a message to you; she said to tell you that she loves you very much, and she didn’t want to leave you.”

Growing up with the broiling heat and frequently unpredictable tropical weather of Louisiana was the easy part; not knowing who she was or where she came from was the hard part. In Gypsy Phoenix: A Birthright of Hope, author Kimberly Thompson recalls her life-to-date through pain, tears, and ultimate joy. Relinquished at birth for adoption, Kim lived life into her thirties always lacking what she truly wished for—answers about her past. Afraid of hurting her adoptive parents, she waits thirty-two years before the embers that have been smoldering within ignite, threatening to devour her completely.

Watch Kimberly’s story unfold as she discovers unconditional love and forgiveness, which finally offer the freedom to fly like a Gypsy Phoenix. Kim has finally full circle to the revelation of who she is and where she began. Whether you have experienced adoption personally or just know someone who has, this powerful story will speak to the lost and encourage those who have questions to continue seeking answers.

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About the Author: Kimberly Thompson is the author of six books, of which three are published, and three have yet to be published.

Gypsy Phoenix: A Birthright of Hope is the first of two; Gypsy Phoenix: Good ’Nuff will be published later in 2013.

Her first fictional series, “Legends of the Swamps,” has begun publication with the first of two books; Uncle Frank and the Search for the Alligator King, and A Mess of Fish. The third book of the “Legends of the Swamps” series, Summer in the South, is set to be published in 2013.

Kim and her husband, Keith, currently live in Baskin, LA.

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By the Same Author: Gypsy Phoenix: Good ’Nuff (2013, CreateSpace).

From the Back Cover: “Welcome Home, Baby Girl!”

When we met, Uncle Larry had huge alligator tears in his eyes and long lanky arms that he wrapped around me tightly. He choked a bit when he said to me, “We’ve waited a long time for this day, but you’ve finally made it back home! You’ve come back to us!”

Home? Home... Yes, it took me a long time, but I finally made it back home.

Most people don’t get second chances, but Kim did. After finding her birth family and answers she’d longed to hear, the journey to healing began. Through many tearful conversations with her lost family, she learned much. But nothing could have prepared her for the lessons that were still in store for her.

From dealing with rebellious children, family members who turned their backs on her after her first book, Gypsy Phoenix: A Birthright of Hope, was published, and a husband who was diagnosed with a disabling illness—it’s all included in Gypsy Phoenix: Good ’Nuff.

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About the Author: Kimberly Thompson is the author of four published books; both “Gypsy Phoenix” autobiographies: A Birthright of Hope and Good ’Nuff, as well as two published fictional Christian romantic novels.

The “Legend of the Swamps” series begins with Uncle Frank and the Search for the Alligator King, and continues in A Mess of Fish. Her third installment in the “Legends” series, Summer in the South, is due to be released later in 2013.

Kim and her husband, Keith, currently live in Baskin, LA.

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By the Same Author: Gypsy Phoenix: A Birthright of Hope (2010, Tate Publishing & Enterprises).

From the Dust Jacket: This is the story of a childhood and what a childhood! It was Leigh Bonheur’s fate to experience almost every wrong that can befall an illegitimate child. Passed from family to family, a human hand-me-down, she found little love and no understanding. Only her innate humour in recounting these experiences makes them bearable reading. Some of her adventures were hilarious, some grotesque, some horrendous; but through them all one hears the ring of truth, and sees the development of an unusual mind against a background that would have reduced most children to permanent nonentity. Her portraits of “parents” and others are vivid and unsparingly true-to-life: Hand Me Down is less like a conventional autobiography than like some new kind of documentary novel. Equipped with a wealth of talent and the gift of total recall, Leigh Bonheur has written more than a fascinating book: it is a vivid portrayal of human irresponsibility and a plea for the perpetual Lost Generation—the innocent victims of inconvenient birth.

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About the Author: Hand Me Down is Leigh Bonheur’s childhood autobiography. She has had a varied career as a personnel officer, radio announcer and career consultant. Once married, she now lives in Sydney with her son and is feature columnist with the Sydney Daily Mirror. Much of her time is devoted to writing, speaking and working for the socially handicapped, especially children, and she is a Director of the National President’s Committee of SOS Children’s Villages of Australia.

From the Publisher: From being sold for 50 cents and a half pint of corn liquor in the deep South to braving the harsh winds of Alaska, Hand Me Downs and Leftovers begins in the 1950s and follows the journey of a little girl named Maggie as she struggles through abuse, homelessness, and separation from her family to discover her place in life.

Charles Carroll and his brother, Bobby, had the misfortune of being hard-to-place foster children and New Jersey in the 1950s. So the “powers that be” simply reclassified them from “orphan” to “retarded” and exiled them to a state-mental institution. There they remained for nearly ten years, deprived of their civil liberties, devoid of their right to an education, and denied any semblance of a humane existence. Beneath the sanitized façade of the institution’s administrative offices and visiting rooms were cramped dormitories and dank basement hellholes. Lazy and inept personnel foisted off supervision of these children to ruthless monitors—children themselves—who maintained order through methods so sadistic and horrific that “child abuse” seems a chillingly inadequate label. Charles was a victim of an uncaring, ignorant, and underfunded system-one that was kept just out of the view of polite society. But the differentiating aspect of Charles’s incarceration in this “nuthouse” is the ironic, cosmic hook in this story: he was not nuts. He was, in fact, a sensitive and perceptive child with a normal IQ. Moreover, Charles was consciously and painfully aware of every moment of his own abuse as well as the torment of his mentally defective fellow patients. Enduring their collective plight and clinging to his sanity, as one would a tiny glimmer of hope, he vowed to one day write this remarkable story of survival-not for his sake, but for the sake of society’s outcasts and those too helpless to help themselves, then and now. About the Author: Charles Carroll has devoted much of his life to telling his story in an effort to create public awareness, curb child abuse wherever it may exist, educate the uninformed, and dispel the public myth that these things don’t happen anymore. “They do,” writes Mr. Carroll. “Only today, such improprieties are better hidden.”

The mini biography of author/filmmaker/actor William Byron Hillman. All about surviving a teenage marriage, building a career in the entertainment industry and searching adoption records for birth parents and family information. A crazy true story covering the journey of a lifetime all done The Hard Way. About the Author: William Byron Hillman is a film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and author of numerous published screenplays, films, books and travel guides. As an actor, he appeared in many films and television shows and is an accomplished musician having written film scores, songs and lyrics. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the music guilds BMI and ASCAP.

This book consists of five autobiographical narratives by Susan Harris O’Connor, a social worker and transracial adoptee. These monologues were developed and performed around the United States in academic, clinical and child welfare settings to wide acclaim over the last sixteen years. They will be of immediate interest to scholars of race, identity, emotional intelligence, adoption, child welfare, as well as clinicians and those directly impacted in families created by adoption. The book will also speak to writers, performers and individuals interested in developing their voice through self-exploration. In her narratives the author explores in depth: the impact of foster care during the first 14 months of her life; her relationship with her unknown birth father; the role of race and racism for transracial adoptees who grow up in white communities; the development of her racial identity and a model derived from these experiences, and the relationships between her different identities or mind constructs, her inner strengths and vulnerabilities, and the outside world. There is a progression one chapter to the next, chronicling greater understanding, deeper reflection, and a developing voice. This is an original and sophisticated exploration of the inner life of a transracial adoptee and the forces that helped shape her life. It is at once a case study and an observation of the human condition with universal appeal.

Adoptees can have a picture-perfect upbringing with their adoptive parents, and yet still feel the need to find their roots; it’s a natural—maybe even primal—need. Adoptive parents, if still alive, should not feel threatened by this desire; it is a testament that they have raised a well-rounded child. In He Waited for Me, Patricia Kamradt encourages all adoptees to seek out their history because it is a part of who they are. They may find more than they had ever hoped to find. Many, if not most, adoptees search for their biological mothers first. This is understandable because of the maternal bond. In some cases, this search leads to a dead end for one reason or another. In the beginning, when the author was asked if she wanted to find her biological father, she was reluctant. This was because she was deeply hurt by her mother’s decision to not allow contact with her, even though she tried to rationalize her thinking. She decided to go ahead with the search for her biological father-one of the best decisions she feels she has ever made. He Waited for Me tells the story of her search and its results, presenting an inspiring story of hope and joy.

A book about adoption that has proven techniques for improving the life of the adult adoptee, helping to remove the “shame” and grief connected with being adopted. Healing the Adoption Experience tells the story of the early life of Peggy Barnes, and moves the adopted child through leaving the orphanage to life with her adoptive parents, where she was renamed Nancy Parkhill. Written for the adult adoptee, the therapist who works with adult adoptees, the adoptive family, and the birth mother, the exercises presented help the adoptee reach closer concerning the adoption experience so as to dispel the shame of being adopted. About the Author: Nancy Parkhill MA, LPCC, NCC, who died suddenly in 2005, was a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in Albuquerque, NM. She had been in private practice for ten years, specializing in Adoption, Attachment, Adoption search and reunion, Relationship counseling, Birth mother and Adoptee reunion, family counseling, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Counselor training, Adoptive parents therapy, Adoption workshops. She spent the first two and a half years of her life in the Christian Children’s Home in St. Louis, MO. Her book recounts her life and her journey for psychological and emotional healing.

From the age of 11, Ivan’s life bounced between residential treatment centers, psychiatric facilities, and group homes in Alaska and Montana. During those years he was separated from everyone he knew. Just before his 15th birthday, Ivan was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a form of bone cancer. Alone in the world and now facing the fight of his life he was moved to yet another state, Washington, for cancer treatment. With the help of his caseworker he was reunited with his older brother whom he had not seen in many years. After cancer treatment Ivan was in need of a foster placement while his brother looked for housing and a way to support the two of them. Emotionally shut down and nearly nonverbal Ivan entered his new foster home. Out of the pain emerged a young man who was not the broken, disturbed teen he was portrayed by the records to be. A teen with a zest for life and love to share was waiting for a chance to belong.

From the Publisher: The Heart of Adoption was written to give you, the reader, a glimpse into the different perspectives of adoption. The book takes a peek into the heart of many people touched by this powerful event we call “adoption.” As we journey, we will get a glimpse into the following: The Heart of God; The Heart of the Birthparent; The Heart of the Adoptee; The Heart of the Adoptive Parents; The Heart of Family and Friends; The Heart of Abortion; and The Heart of the Professional. Each chapter of the book begins with some thoughts, feelings, and sayings from each one’s perspective. Hopefully this will give some insight into their hearts in order to open our minds to understand and embrace the adoption process and experience. Every chapter includes a collection of writings—letters, inspirational quotes, Scriptures, facts, and short personal experiences and stories.

From the Back Cover: Life, for Lynda Freeman, is essentially positive. She believes in people’s innate goodness. Her faith in the beauty of love has led to an exploration and gathering of 50 true stories into a book called Heartbeats: True Stories of Love. These tales tell of romantic love, love of family and love of friends. There are also chronicles about love of animals. We see how love can change us. Her collection is beautiful, touching and truly inspiring and she wishes to share what has uplifted and motivated her life.

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About the Author: Lynda Freeman is a retired teacher living in Toronto, Canada. She attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and graduated from York University in Toronto. She is a writer and artist who teaches painting to adults. She shares her home with her son, three marmalade cats and a Dachshund named Wilbur.

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Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, “A Tidal Wave of Love,” “Adopting Nicole,” “Adoption, a Love Story,” “Leading with Loving Kindness,” “Mother and Daughter Reunion,” “The Secret,” and “How to Say Respect in Chinese.”

Pulling her covers up to her chin, Heather closed her eyes and waited to die. Abused, abandoned, and profoundly alone, the only place she felt alive was in her dreams. In her dreams, there were people who loved her, people she used to call family. Heather’s story is a difficult one to tell, but she tells it with sensitivity. Written from the perspective of a child, the author takes the reader into the mind of an orphaned girl who is alone and unprotected in a world where predators seem to thrive. Read her story to discover how she overcame her despair and found the will to live again.

From the Publisher: Some two dozen boys tell of growing up in the Hebrew National Orphan Home. Though punishment was often brutal and where a few boys were victims of sexual predators, residents had many religious, recreational, educational, cultural, and athletic opportunities. Most agree that the good far outweighed the bad.

Orphanage horror stories of the 19th and early 20th centuries brought on the modern welfare system that includes foster-care programs. Yet as effective as the foster-care programs throughout the nation have been in providing good care and safety for many hundreds of thousands of children, there are still far too many youngsters who have been ill-served by these programs. Many are shunted from place to place. The authors argue that well-run orphanages offer a better solution. Their essays tell the story of The Home that reared them and provides understanding of what life in an orphanage was like.

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About the Author: Ira A. Greenberg was a reporter and psychologist on beginning this book. His World War II army years included serving with the 11th Engineer Combat Battalion, where with 35 other soldiers, he completed Navy Scouts and Raiders school—thereby being among the few who can claim grandfather status to today’s elite SEALs. He served with the 11th in southern France and Germany, earned a B.A. in journalism from Oklahoma University, and was a reporter for several newspapers including the Columbus (GA) Enquirer, Louisville Courier-Journal, and Los Angeles Times. He left the Times in 1962 with an M.A. in English from the University of Southern California. Then with an M.S. in counseling from Los Angeles State University and a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School, he was a staff and supervising psychologist at Camarillo State Hospital. He now practices hypnotherapy and business coaching in Los Angeles.

Richard G. Safran received his B.A. in English from Brooklyn College in 1958 and an M.A. in English from Hunter College in 1964. He also received an Advanced Certificate in Educational Administration and Supervision, which qualified him to become assistant principal and later principal at George Westinghouse Vocational and Technical High School in New York City, retiring in 1989. He has taught English and other subjects at City-as-School, John Dewey High School, Westinghouse High School, and Sands Junior High School, as well as lecturing at Brooklyn College and Pace University. He was a sergeant in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (1958-61), serving about 15 months at the U.S. Army Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany.

Sam George Arcus is a semi-retired social worker who spent most of his career in summer camps, Jewish community centers, and is currently with the Pima Council on Aging in Arizona, monitoring nursing homes. He authored a book for ombudsman volunteers as well as Deja Views of an Aging Orphan and contributed to An Orphan Has Many Parents. He earned his B.S.S. from City College of New York while working as a supervisor and arts and crafts instructor at the Pride of Judea Children’s Home in Brooklyn, where he met his wife, Adele. He earned his M.S.W. from Columbia University and then worked in Jewish community centers in Houston, Dallas, Jacksonville, Chicago, Boston, and finally Tucson, retiring as executive director.

Born in Germany and adopted in the United States, a boy grows up wondering about the family in the shadows of his past. Then, as an adult, he finds them. This slim volume is a reflection on his journey.

From the Publisher: The daughter of esteemed writer Paula Fox and the mother of Courtney Love relates “the curse of the first-born daughter” that has haunted four generations of her family.

As an adopted child, Linda Carroll created a magical world of her own, made up of dramatic adventures and the abiding fantasy that her real mother would come and take her away. When she finds herself pregnant at the age of eighteen, she is determined to have the perfect understanding with her child that she lacked with her adoptive mother. But readers will know better, for that baby grows up to be Courtney Love, desperately attention-seeking, deeply troubled, and one of the most talented women in rock.

Even as a baby, Courtney is beset by mood swings that no doctor can explain or cure. Her dark moods and paranoia escalate as she grows up, driving mother and daughter apart. When Courtney has a daughter of her own, Linda finally decides to find her own biological mother, and end the estrangement of generations of first-born daughters.

Her Mother’s Daughter is Linda Carroll’s story of self-discovery as an adopted daughter, a childlike hippie mother and a woman determined to find herself before finding her roots. Set apart from the typical celebrity memoir by Carroll’s gifted storytelling, Her Mother’s Daughter gives a fresh perspective on the elusive yet enduring connections between mothers and daughters, and reveals the true history of the wildly confabulatory Courtney Love.

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About the Author: Linda Carroll was adopted at birth, raised in San Francisco and only later discovered that her biological mother is the writer Paula Fox. Married at eighteen, and twice more before she was thirty, she is now the mother of five grown children, including singer/songwriter Courtney Love. She is a therapist and writer and lives in Corvallis, Oregon with her husband of seventeen years.

The true account of a child’s decade long ordeal with a fugitive on the run. Years of incest that lead to a pregnancy at 13. The trauma of giving birth in secret, being forced to give her daughter up for adoption, and coping with the shame of protecting the guilty. A glimpse into the life of a victim and a victor. Explore a young girl’s journey from utter chaos to an unlikely destination of peace.