Out of respect for the only parents Gary had known, he waited until both of them had passed away to call the orphanage in pursuit of medical history on his biological parents. He was shocked to discover that a brother was searching for him. A life-altering phone call revealed that not only did he have a brother, but that he had ten siblings! Why was he, the only ONE OF ELEVEN children, put up for adoption? World War II had many casualties. The woman who gave birth to him was one of them. At age 58, he would discover that the highway he and his 16-year-old buddies were gazing down the night before his family moved from North Dakota to Oregon, wondering where the road ended, would be at his birth mother’s grave.

From the Dust Jacket: The moment Diane Burke, an author and mother of two grown sons, received an unexpected certified letter in the mail, she had no idea her life would be shaken to its core. Memories of a past she had buried more than forty years ago suddenly resurfaced and she wasn’t prepared to deal with them.

Steve Orlandi, happily married, father of two and step-father of three, was living the typical middle class American life. But since the age of eight, when he discovered he was adopted, he had led that life dealing with inner questions about his self-identity and genetic history. Always on his mind was one simple, yet complicated and loaded question: Who am I?

In One Perfect Day, Diane shares with readers how she came to the heartbreaking conclusion to give her baby up for adoption and how this decision has affected her life sense. Through Steve’s invaluable perspective, readers will also experience the lengths he traveled to discover his mother’s identity and reach out to her, not knowing whether she’d want to meet with him after nearly four decades of separation. It all comes together on one perfect day.

This book asks and answers the questions: What defines family? What does it mean to forgive? And is it worth the time, energy, and emotional cost to love a stranger?

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About the Author: Diane Burke is an author who has published five novels with Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time at the beach with her three grown sons, six grandsons, and three step-grandchildren. She resides in Ormond Beach, Florida.

Steve Orlandi lives in the South not far from his biological mother. He has been happily married for the past twenty years to Barbara, the love of his life and his best friend. He is the proud father of two sons and three stepchildren.

An unforgettable memoir, an adoptee who found her family and also found closed adoptions had a purpose—to break up American Indian families. What is known about the Indian Adoption Projects and the aftermath has been pretty much secret ... Until now. A reader said: The journey... the courage and openness of your work. It’s very inspiring. The way Small Sacrifice shares itself ... it’s as if the book were speaking ... holding a talking stick with us all gathered in a circle ... we come together through your sacrifice. Trace blogs at: www.splitfeathers.blogspot.com.

From the Publisher: Iwao Peter Sano, a California Nisei, sailed to Japan in 1939 to become an adopted son to his childless aunt and uncle. He was fifteen and knew no Japanese. In the spring of 1945, loyal to his new country, Sano was drafted in the last levy raised in the war. Sent through Korea to join the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, Sano arrived in Hailar, one hundred miles from the Soviet border, as the war was coming to a close. In the confusion that resulted when the war ended, Sano had the bad luck to be in a unit that surrendered to the Russians. It would be nearly three years before he was released to return to Japan.

  Sano’s account of life in the POW and labor camps of Siberia is the story of a little-known part of the great conflagration that was World War II. It is also the poignant memoir of a man who was always an outsider, both as an American youth of Japanese ancestry and then as a young Japanese man whose loyalties were suspect to his new compatriots.

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About the Author: was returned to Japan in 1948 and worked for the U.S. occupation forces before coming back to the United States in 1952. He is now a retired architect living in Palo Alto.

From the Dust Jacket (reprint): Living in Oregon lumber camps at the turn of the century, Opal began this charming old-fashioned diary when she was only six. Her gift lies in the invention of a delightful Opalese language. These word “prints,” as she calls them, depict dramatic events in the lives of beloved creatures who inhabit her special world.

Opal’s theme is simple: God is caring. Life is wondrous.

Orphaned and lonely, haunted by the memories of lost parents, she speaks directly to the pain and love that lie beneath the surface for all of us.

How had this small child of the Oregon backwoods acquired such an extraordinary vocabulary, such bewildering fantasies and such a deep understanding of nature?

From a rural simplicity Opal’s later life exploded into astonishing international connections with French royalty when she discovered her origins.

This book is an authentic treasure.

This book is an American classic—poignant, amusing, and unselfconsciously beautiful. In this new expanded edition, readers of all ages will find a story to cherish—a true document to the human spirit.

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About the Author: Opal Whiteley grew up in nineteen lumber camps in Oregon where she stored the pitiful scraps of her diary. In 1920 she reconstructed it at the request of the Atlantic Monthly. Most of her adult life has been spent in England where, now in her eighties, she is confined to a hospital outside London.

Jane Boulton found Opal’s language and perceptions those of a poet. After completing this poetic adaptation during long snowy months on a sheep ranch in Alberta, Canada, she flew to meet Opal in England.

Later the research of her husband, Peter, led to a collaboration on a book, Psychic Beam to Beyond (1983, DeVorss). Now living in Palo Alto, California, the author has written a film script of Opal and is working on a novel to be titled Journey Within a Journey.

Open is for those who are tired of trying to be happy, of trying to succeed or change, and want to let go of old ways of thinking and being. From being cynical and living in his head, Eoin McCabe describes how he was broken open by life experiences such as a broken marriage, the loss of loved ones and feelings of isolation and depression, and forced to face his deepest fears and insecurities. Through this process he discovered simple truths about life, the power of the heart and the gift of self-awareness. Open shows you how to:
• let go of living from the head and experience peace in your life
• deepen self-awareness and self-acceptance
• uncover internal blocks and self-limiting beliefs that keep you stuck
• apply simple strategies for building powerful relationships
• discover your life lessons and live each moment from the heart
Open’s direct and clear approach makes it an easy and entertaining read. The practical tools in the book were developed over twenty years of working with groups and individuals and have helped transform the lives of hundreds of people.

From the Dust Jacket: “The most dangerous agent working in Egypt” is how A.W. Sansom described John Eppler in his book I Spied on Spies.

Raised as an adopted son in one of Cairo’s most aristocratic families, John Eppler developed a taste for adventure when still in his teens. As a young man he went gold hunting in the depths of Africa. As war came nearer and nearer, as a German national he was approached by the Abwehr, to work for them in the ‘second oldest profession’. His instinctive love of danger made spying attractive and in the end irresistible. He didn’t do it for money—he had enough of that; he didn’t do it out of patriotism—he was not enough of a scoundrel for that: he did it for the smell of excitement. This pursuit led him into the warrens of Istanbul, the precipitous mountains of Iraq, the quaking salt deserts of Iran, among the roaming, raiding tribes of the lower Himalayas, through Syria and Lybia and into the byways of intrigue and glamour in Cairo and Alexandria, even to Berlin and Bucharest.

His missions introduced him to brilliant trackers, ingenious spy-tradesmen, idiotic polemicists, dedicated intriguers and inept bureaucrats. He set up contact agents throughout the Middle East to help the Germans in their schemes to disrupt British Intelligence and military establishments. His bosses were the tops in their fields: Canaris, Aladin, Ribbentrop. It was he who was selected as the so-called Grand Mufti of Jerusalem’s interpreter in his talks with Hitler in Berlin. It was he who was chosen to maintain contact in Cairo with Rommel at the time of Rommel’ great offensive. To do this he had to cross the vast uncharted Lybian desert and sneak into Cairo unnoticed.

This is his true story, one of great physical adventure and danger, told with a frankness and directness unusual in a man of his chosen profession.

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About the Author: John Eppler and his wife Denise are now living in a charming flat in Paris on the banks of the Seine. At the moment he is engaged in preparing his memoirs of life in a British prisoner-of-war camp to be entitled Operation Honeymoon.

My dreams, my hopes, fears, joys and stresses are “ordinary.” They are not different from anyone else’s. My body might be “unusual,” but my heart is not. God offers me the same grace he offers you, and expects of me the same trust and obedience he expects of anyone else. There is no different Bible for the disabled, and no different way to “run the race that is set before us.” I make the same mistakes, succeed by the same effort, and love my life just as you do. In that most important sense, I am ordinary.

Dr. Maya Angelou lives fifteen minutes from this ordinary town. Dr. Gary Chapman, the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Five Love Languages, does as well. Both authors give advice in this book. Other neighbors also provide a peek behind their backyard fence and a glimpse into their soul. For example, meet “Mike the Miracle Man.” Mike had a heart attack on his bathroom floor, received CPR for 60 minutes, and is alive to tell about it. Another neighbor is Timea Reid. She married because of love at first. Did her marriage flop or thrive? Each neighbor reveals real life in its truest and most raw form—with lessons from which every single ordinary and extraordinary person can benefit. Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, Chapter 5: “Family Secrets” (pp. 93-107), about Rebecca Howorka.

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.

From the Dust Jacket: This book is a fascinating memoir by two people who grew up in a unique orphanage in Brooklyn, New York. Both authors recount their formative years there and offer views of their lives that are poignant, colorful, and gripping. They pay tribute to the caring parent figures they encountered and the reader gets to meet these people via their own compelling first-hand accounts of their experiences.

The orphanage itself receives an ample share of the spotlight. The individuals who made it work, plus the colorful cast of orphans who lived there, are provided in rich detail. Readers will be touched by the profound impact of this “home” on the lives of its residents and will feel compelled to re-examine their views of orphanages in general. This book is not only an inspiring human interest story, but it also breaks new ground in the study of orphans and orphanages.

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About the Author: Phil Craft is a retired social worker, with many interests and hobbies. An avid Brooklyn Dodger fan, he authored “Pee Wee Reese: A Quiet Hero” for Ragtyme Sports magazine, in 1966.

Dr. Stan Friedland, a former high school principal and long-time educator, now presents workshops and seminars to teachers and school principals throughout the United States. He has written many articles for educational journals and has a weekly cablevision program on education.

From the Back Cover: 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.

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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 N.J. 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.

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.

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.

A long journey through hardship, sorrow, adoption, pain, joy and love. My quest for happiness after a terrible childhood, a monster adoptive mother and two continents.

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.

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About the Author: Marissa Kline-Gonzales lives in Bayonne, New Jersey, 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.

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.

From the Back Cover: 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.

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About the Author: William Holman served as Head Librarian, Pan American University; Director of the Rosenberg Library in Galveston; Head of the San Antonio Public Library; Director of the San Francisco Library; and Librarian, the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas. He has been a mentor for the Orphan Foundation of America and has represented the group on national television.

Mr. Holman and his wife, Barbara, publish under the imprint, “Roger Beacham, Publisher,” and have produced such books as Harold Billings’ Texas Beast Fables and This Bitterly Beautiful Land: A Texas Commonplace Book, considered by many the most beautiful book ever published in Texas.

From the Back Cover: When they told her if she chose them to be her new parents, she never realized that it meant to completely erase her past and conceal the true identity of who she had been for the first thirteen years of her life.

The Other Child Abandoned is the sequel to The Auschwitz Kommandant: A Daughter’s Search for the Father She Never Knew. Originally published in 2009, it is the second of a trilogy—a memoir of life in America after adoption.

Recently adopted, Barbara leaves her homeland in 1956 at age thirteen, sailing from Germany to America with her new family. Her secret past will torment her and prove to have a traumatic affect on the years to come.

From the Back Cover: Adopted at seven years old from an Indian orphanage into a family from Barcelona, Asha returned to the country of her birth twenty years later. This was no ordinary trip, but to learn about her past and meet the nuns who took care of her as a child. Through conversations, she began to realise what life might have been like had she not been adopted.

Slowly, she uncovered the truth about her birth family and felt she had reclaimed the Indian part of herself. Then, as she tried to fill in the remaining gaps in the mystery, she met the sister she never knew she had—the other Asha, living in an Indian village.

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About the Author: Asha Miró works in television and was nominated Catalan Person of the Year in 2004 for her work on multicultural integration and international adoption. A number one bestseller in Spain, her books have sold over 200,000 copies and captivated audiences across Europe.

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By the Same Author: Daughter of the Ganges: A Memoir (2006, Atria Books) and Traces of Sandalwood (2014, Pontas Literary & Film Agency).

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.

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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.

This is a story about adoption. It is about direct adoption and family adoption. It also involves keeping a secret from one of those who is adopted. It forms a family secret that defines and destroys as it gets passed along. It is the story of my mother and her sister who get cast out into the cold and are taken in by family. However, they are split up by the family and live in two separate worlds. My mother is taken to California and never told the secret. Dorothy, mom’s sister, knows she is adopted and knows she has a sister. My mother is raised as the only child of the Haughts. She knows she was born in Ohio but knows nothing else. This is the way Norden and Mabel want it to be. They would be the only ones knowing the family secret. Mabel is paranoid that someone would find out and attempt to take Zona away from them. After mother learns the truth she takes on that paranoia. She lives and breathes it and it eventually takes over her life. Everything is done to protect that secret. Yet, when I turn 17 she decides it is time to tell me “the secret” and to take me back to meet my real aunt and uncle and cousins. This is a story of how the family secret transcends time and touches many lives. It is a story of how people react differently when told the secret. My cousins David, Barbara, and Joe are amazed that I just found out about them a few months before meeting them. They have known about me all their lives. They knew who I was and where I was and what all was going on. For me, all of that was shut out. I had to ask them tons of questions to find out about them. Even when doing my final research for this book I was still asking questions to all that were still alive. I am glad I went when I did because death would take the ones who knew the answers. Imagine if I would just now be finding all of this out at the ripe old age of 60? There would now be only a handful of people left to tell me and they would only have part of the knowledge. This secret has led me on many adventures. I am glad that I know the secret but sure wish it had come about differently. But then I would not have had to write this book. So welcome to Our Family Secret, My Mother’s Lie.

From the Publisher: My sister and I uncovered a fascinating story about our father and his life of crime. Thirteen years after his death, we were contacted by an adoptee, age thirty, searching for her birth parents. The limited information she provided matched our dad. We were puzzled because at the time of her conception, our father was in prison just ten miles away. We requested his visitor’s list and found a female visited during that time. When we broke this news to the adoptee, she was mortified and cancelled a D.N.A test. In the process of determining if we were siblings, we discovered our father’s criminal life, before he met our mother. Going back to his roots, we were surprised to learn our father and his sister were abandoned as toddlers. They were left on the porch of relatives. He grew up to become a notorious opportunist whose crimes netted more money than many legendary outlaws. He once said, “I could tell you stories that would sell a book!” Unfortunately, we never asked him to elaborate.

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From the Back Cover: In an article written exclusively for the Parade magazine, U.E. Baughman, former Chief, U.S. Secret Service and Fred Blumenthal [“There’s a Boom in Phony Money,” Jan. 29, 1961], former Parade Washington correspondent detailed our father’s counterfeiting operation. His organized gang consisted of twenty-eight passers and an ex-Cleveland cop. They passed their first counterfeit $20.00 bill on June 11, 1960, in Wellsburg, West Virginia. Within days, the bills appeared In Toledo, Detroit, Buffalo and New York City. By the end of June, $23,040.00 of these phony bills was in the hands of the Secret Service. In July, the bills spread from Los Angeles to Jacksonville. By this time, twenty-two Secret Service agents were on their trail. Our father was caught after he gave an intensive three day counterfeiting course to two undercover agents posing as crooks. For a fee of $10,000.00 in good money, he trained them how to make phony money and set them up with equipment, paper and ink.

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About the Author: The baby of the family, Deborah Frye was born after the counterfeiting operation. When she was two, her father was sent away again. Her early memories were of visiting him at the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville. He was released for the last time when she was nine.

After leaving Youngstown, she worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for six years. She received many Letters of Commendation from high-ranking Agency officials for outstanding service while working for the CIA.

Debbie is married and has one daughter. She currently resides in the Washington Metropolitan area and is self-employed as a space planner and designer.

Tracy Mercier recalls twice in her childhood the heartache of losing her father. She was two and the youngest at the time of the counterfeiting; and eight when the kidnapping/robbery occurred. Much of what she knew of her father was learned through letters and Sunday trips to the prison. They were reunited when she was fifteen. Most memorable were the trips to the horse track with him.

Tracy graduated with honors in accounting and left Youngstown to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. After six years of intelligence work, she attended George Washington University. She is currently a tax professional and a Certified Financial Planner. She lives in the Washington DC area and is married with three children.

Re-tracing their father’s path in life has been a fascinating experience; an unlikely adventure for two sisters. From spending the day/night in prison in search of their father’s cell to the bittersweet friendship they developed with his kidnap victim. The journey included reliving their youth which led to unlocking some childhood mysteries.

From the Back Cover: 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 everybody 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 resilience, 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.

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About the Author: Rex Wilson is a retired archeologist with the National Park Service. He and his wife Susan live in Richmond, Virginia.

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).

“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 institution of adoption.

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. About the Author: Jane Park is a wife and mother who raised two children, taught English horsemanship and was active in the family electronics business. Her interests include traveling the world, collector automobiles, knitting scarves, hats and sweaters for family and friends. When her determination to find her biological families became an overwhelming desire, she put her efforts into the research required for 11 years, until she was successful. Jane finds pleasure in visiting with family, friends, and the very large “new” family she found. She plans travel to unique destinations for anyone interested. Jane enjoys retirement with her husband, Burt, and their three cats.

From the Publisher: In this riveting memoir a woman in post World War II Germany relinquishes her infant son Peter to an orphanage where he’s adopted by American parents and brought to the United States. Separated from family of origin and ancestral homeland, Peter grows up alienated in a family and culture he doesn’t understand. He returns to Germany believing happiness will come when finding his German family and reclaiming ethnic identity. But Peter’s hopes are crushed as his search twists into a desperate struggle to escape a labyrinth of total despair. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, this is the story of a man’s spiritual transformation where the protagonist must ultimately confront himself.

This little book is a collection of ideas, observations, poetry, and unfinished narratives written from the point of view of an adoptee and that covers a diverse set of topics in one way or the other related to the wonders and mysteries of the human condition.

From the Publisher: You must have seen one—they’re everywhere. Photo blow-ups of Hollywood star Angelina Jolie and Zahara, the child she adopted from Ethiopia, both beaming. “Saved by a Mother’s Love”—it’s People’s cover story. Zahara, we’re told, is thriving. Nothing is said of the grandmother who tried to keep her, broken ties, loss. Adoption is a win-win. Right? Healthy white infants have become hard to locate and expensive to adopt. So people from around the world turn to interracial and intercountry adoption, often, like Jolie, with the idea that while growing their families, they’re saving children from destitution. But as Outsiders Within reveals, while transracial adoption is a practice traditionally considered benevolent, it often exacts a heavy emotional, cultural, and even economic toll.

Through compelling essays, fiction, poetry, and art, the contributors to this landmark publication carefully explore this most intimate aspect of globalization. Finally, in the unmediated voices of the adults who have matured within it, we find a rarely considered view of adoption, an institution that pulls apart old families and identities and grafts new ones. Moving beyond personal narrative, these transracially adopted writers from around the world tackle difficult questions about how to survive the racist and ethnocentric worlds they inhabit, what connects the countries relinquishing their children to the countries importing them, why poor families of color have their children removed rather than supported—about who, ultimately, they are. In their inquiry, they unseat conventional understandings of adoption politics, ultimately reframing the controversy as a debate that encompasses human rights, peace, and reproductive justice.

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About the Author: Jane Jeong Trenka was born in Seoul, South Korea, and adopted into a white family in rural Minnesota in 1972. She was reunited with her birth family in 1995. Her book, The Language of Blood, received the Minnesota Book Award for Autobiography/Memoir and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. Trenka has received many literary fellowships and commendations.

Julia Chinyere Oparah is a professor of Ethnic Studies at Mills College, a women’s liberal arts college in Oakland, CA, author (under her previous name, Julia Sudbury) of Other Kinds of Dreams: Black Women’s Organisations and the Politics of Transformation (Routledge, 1998) and editor of Global Lockdown: Race, Gender and the Prison-Industrial Complex (Routledge, 2005). Oparah is involved in the prison abolitionist, anti-violence and global justice movements and is a co-founder of Sankofa, a support group for transracial adoptees in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sun Yung Shin was born in Seoul, Korea and was adopted at thirteen months old by a Polish-Irish-German Catholic American family in the Chicago area. Sun Yung is a poet, teacher, and freelance writer. Her bilingual children’s book, Cooper’s Lesson (published by Children’s Book Press), is illustrated by Korean American artist Kim Cogan with Korean translations by Min Paek, author of Aekyung’s Dream. She lives with her husband (who is a domestic kept-in-the-family adoptee from Chicago), outdoor-sports journalist Christopher Cross, and their two non-adopted children in Minneapolis. Minnesota.

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By the Same Author: Jane Jeong Trenka: The Language of Blood: A Memoir (2003, Borealis Books) and Fugitive Visions: An Adoptee’s Return to Korea (2009, Graywolf Press).

Sun Yung Shin: Skirt Full of Black (2007, Coffee House Press) and Unbearable Splendor (2016, Coffee House Press).