From the Back Cover: The answer “no” is unacceptable to Marie Pizano in her quest of life. In her memoir, From Barefoot to Stilettos, she tells the story of her life thus far. She vividly recounts her experiences from childhood days, living on food stamps, learning the ways of local gangs, and double-dutching on the streets of southside Chicago. Brilliantly, she shares the inspirational tale of her survival of a lifechanging motorcycle accident and her perseverance to keep moving forward despite the odds she faced. She reveals, in complete honesty, the feelings and struggles she faced when she moved to Memphis to live as a trophy-wife life—dealing with everything from the mean girls, the monster-in-law, and the panic attacks, to becoming a mother, her post-divorce years, and defeating the odds by building an entertainment powerhouse—all while rediscovering herself, her life, and her power. Through explorations of her own past, present, and potential future, Marie reflects on how the sum of her trials and triumphs have shaped her into the empowered woman she has become in her incessant quest to find her “yes.”

There is a powerful message here for other women—or anyone, for that matter—in situations that are less than ideal; you can always find your “yes,” no matter what happens in your life. You can survive! You have a choice - you can either play the victim, or you can do something about it; even when you are at your absolute lowest, there is still a flicker of light that can ignite you. You can stand tall again and walk proudly in your stilettos with truth and integrity; sometimes, you just have to fight for it - life is not for sissies.

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About the Author: Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Marie Pizano moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1999. She is a devoted mother of two children and very passionate about films, music and community. She has overcome many obstacles and is building her life and her company, MVP3 Entertainment Group, on truth and integrity.

Written by a foster parent, this book explores the emotions, issues and experiences that accompany being involved in foster care. Split into two sections, this book lets the foster kids tell things from their side and then flips around and looks at things from a foster parent’s point of view. The information in this book was collected from the author’s personal experience fostering children in her home and from multiple interviews and conversations with foster parents, current foster youth and former foster children. Written in a personal, open and daringly honest prose/free verse poetry form, this book will hopefully bring comfort, encouragement and a sense of familiarity to those involved in the foster care system. It is also a great resource for those who wish to learn more about the foster care system and the unique challenges and experiences that foster children and foster parents go through everyday.

From the Dust Jacket: When Emily Buchanan married her husband, Gerald, after a fairy-tale romance, she assumed children would soon follow. The perfect wedding must surely lead to the perfect family. Emily had a successful career and a loving husband, yet she knew that she would not feel fulfilled unless she also had children.

But the journey to motherhood was to be a long and painful one.

Three miscarriages later she found herself struggling against the stigma of infertility and doubts if she could, or should, ever become a mother. She decided it was time to look at adoption.

Emily and Gerald’s desire to adopt a very young child meant looking abroad yet, as a journalist, Emily knew only too well the sad plight of some children in the developing world who were trafficked to Western couples. She was determined that her child should come from a country where adoption was more regulated and China, where many baby girls are abandoned, seemed an obvious choice. It was a road that took her through an arduous adoption process which made her again confront the life and tragic death of her own mother.

Eventually the mountain of bureaucratic and emotional challenges gave way to the utter joy of bringing up Jade and Rose her two Chinese daughters.

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About the Author: Emily Buchanan is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. Educated at St. Paul’s Girls’ School, Sussex University and City University, she has worked for the BBC for over twenty years. As a producer and correspondent for BBC News and Current Affairs she specialised first in politics and more recently in the developing world and religion. She has made documentaries for Newsnight, Assignment and Correspondent on BBC 2 and has presented Radio 4’s A World in Your Ear. Currently she is a World Affairs Correspondent, living in London with her husband and two children.

From the Dust Jacket: On the surface she was a normal working-class woman who held responsible jobs: driving a school bus, volunteering as an ambulance driver, working in a restaurant—even helping in a pediatric ward. But Marybeth Tinning barely mentioned her children, and when she did there were no outward signs of sorrow. She would recite their names and birth dates as though she were reading a list, citing a cause of death in each case but having nothing more to say about them. There were no affectionate little anecdotes, no spoken memories, no sense of tragedy at their loss. They seemed to slip in and out like little wraiths, leaving no palpable impressions.

There were six autopsies and never any sign of abuse. There were whispers and suspicions. But there was no clear or rational explanation. Marybeth said her children cried a lot; they made her feel nervous; they made her feel she was not a good mother. But then there was another baby. ... And no one understood the silence operating in a community where infants died in a way that seemed too terrible to be true—From Cradle to Grave.

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About the Author: Joyce Egginton is a professional writer who has specialized in investigative reporting. She is particularly interested in the impact of unusual events upon the lives of ordinary people, and in the reactions of those caught up in the drama. This attracted her to the case of Marybeth Tinning. Her previous book, The Poisoning of Michigan, examined the effect of an environmental disaster upon an innocent populace.

For twenty years she was New York correspondent of The Observer of London. Born and educated in London, she lives in New York.

Provides new and highly effective techniques for parents dealing with behavioral challenges with their children. Intended for parents, adoptive parents, foster parents and caretakers of at-risk, ADD/ADHD/RAD, ODD, adopted children and children with behavioral and emotional challenges. Bryan Post speaks to parents about the challenges they face when dealing with behaviors that are often present for adopted children. He helps parents understand the impact of early life trauma and the impact of interruptions in the attachment process. In his compassion for parents and children he offers hope and solutions for the challenges families face. Many parents of adopted children express their fear not only for their child’s present behaviors, but for what will become of them in the future. Bryan’s straightforward, clear-cut approach has created peace and healing for hundreds of families; families who once operated in fear, are now experiencing love.

The number of older-child adoptions is on the rise. In fact, of the nearly 8,700 international adoptions that took place last year, more than half were between the ages of one and four, and nearly a quarter were between the ages of five and 12. This new image of adoption—due in large part to the 2008 ratification of the Hague Adoption Convention—presents new challenges for families looking to expand or start a family. From Half to Whole is a raw and honest look at the trials and tribulations of one family’s struggle to adopt and raise two young boys from Poland who came to America not only with a few stuffed toys in their backpacks but also the trauma of their past. Sharing her personal diary entries, Regina Radomski reveals her compelling yet tumultuous journey to acclimate her adopted children to their new environment and the solace she found in family, friends, and valuable resources she discovered along the way. Inside you’ll find...
• Meaningful insights from licensed clinical social worker Barbara Jean Keane.
• Personal letters from Radomski’s husband, adopted children, and her biological child candidly describing their feelings throughout the last eight years.
• Heartfelt advice from Radomski on what she’s learned—and what she would have done differently.
• Eight key rules to successfully parent the adopted child.
• Resources she recommends to help you through the adoption process.
• And much more! From Half to Whole is a complete perspective on the battle scars of adoption, the love that grows from bonding together, the pride of seeing your accomplishments, and the humor that springs forth from the unexpected.

Author and adoptive mother Ann Sullivan shares her story of the struggles, challenges and successes she faced as she raised a daughter adopted from Russia at age 11. It is the story of failure and progress, of heartbreak and laughter, and of mistakes made and lessons learned. When her daughter’s therapist encouraged Sullivan to write a book about her experiences and hard-won victories, she set out to not only share her experiences, but to offer hope to other adoptive parents. She shares her challenges and successes as she helps her daughter come to terms with her traumatic past, and she offers the lessons she and other adoptive parents have learned along the way. By the Same Author: Adoption and Privatization: An Issue Brief (1998, CWLA Press).

Follow one woman’s incredible and heartfelt journey from the pain of miscarriages to the joy of becoming a parent through adoption. Witness the many struggles that can permeate your life in the aftermath of pregnancy loss. Take a glimpse at the overwhelming desire some women have to become a mother. Celebrate the joy of overcoming adversity and achieving your dreams. Filled with honest, raw emotions and helpful coping tips, From Pain to Parenthood promises to touch your life with a real story that shows the power of the human spirit and the beauty of a mother’s love.

From the Dust Jacket: Good things happen every day! From the Bench is a heartwarming collection of stories about adoptions by people who have done some of those good things. These people and their unconditional love for children first changed the somewhat hardened heart of the judge who presided over their cases. Now, as that same judge shares in this book those uplifting and encouraging stories, the hearts of many others will be similarly touched as the pages of From the Bench are read from coast to coast. From the Bench instills hope in whoever reads it. Within its pages that good things still happen every day.

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About the Author: Randy T. Rogers has served as Probate Judge of Butler County, Ohio since 1995. Since taking the bench, he has presided over thousands of legal proceedings. Respected by his peers, Rogers, in the words of one of his fellow judges, “knows how to think out of the box.” He has advanced mental health and drug dependency issues at the local, regional, and national levels. Known for his innovative thinking and, more importantly, his actions, Rogers is known above all, for the heartwarming stories that he shares about real-life situations that have occurred in his courtroom. Rogers received his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics in 1973 from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. He received his Juris Doctor degree in 1976 from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Law.

From the Back Cover: From The Ground Up is the story of a career military man and his family going "back-to-the-land" to build their retirement home in the hills of Tennessee. Their plan of having the house ready to move into within six months did not materialize, and they spent two winters living in a garage, and a small cabin.

The story tells about their large family, one biological son, and seven adopted children. From the Ground Up covers the heartache and joy of raising children, as well as the trauma of a failed adoption.

As a family of animal lovers, they rescued many abandoned animals, dogs, cats, and calves. The story of a cow jumping out of a barn loft, and goats eating the curtains are just two of the humorous anecdotes.

With incredible transparency, Rachelle D. leads you on a poetic journey of both faith and despair throughout an international adoption pursuit that tragically crumbles before her eyes. Only by experiencing this painful journey straight into the heart of the orphan is she able to see the breathtaking beauty of God’s handiwork in the valley.

From the Dust Jacket: Cokie Roberts’ first book, We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters, was a number one New York Times bestseller, remaining on the list for twenty-six weeks and earning Cokie praise for her “disarming style” (Los Angeles Times) and for her role as a “custodian of time-honored values” (USA Today). Now Cokie joins forces with her husband of thirty-three years, political analyst and college professor Steve Roberts, to reflect upon their life together and the institution of marriage, American style.

With an informal narrative style familiar to readers of We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters, Cokie and Steve use personal stories and memories as a springboard for discussing larger issues of love and marriage, work and family, parents and children. When they met in college they thought their different traditions—she’s Catholic, he’s Jewish—would prevent them from ever getting married. At their wedding in the garden of Cokie’s girlhood home—the house where they still live—they tried to respect and reconcile those traditions, and thirty-one years later their daughter, Rebecca, got married on the same spot.

From This Day Forward is the story of their journey together as they deal with all the issues of a modern marriage, from courtship and parenthood to balancing demanding careers and confronting an empty nest. But they don’t always agree and offer differing perspectives as man and woman, husband and wife. They also tell the stories of other American marriages: those of John and Abigail Adams, immigrants, pioneers, and slaves. There are stories, too, of broken marriages, of contemporary families living through the “divorce revolution” and the challenges of step-parenting and adoption. Taken together, these tales reveal the special nature of marriage in America, an institution that has changed dramatically over time but remains fundamentally the same.

Wise and funny, From This Day Forward is an endearing chronicle of Cokie and Steve’s long time together and an insightful passing-on of some hard-earned wisdom. Ultimately, From This Day Forward is the story of all husbands and wives, the way they support and strengthen each other and yet continue to grow and change as individuals.

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About the Author: Cokie Roberts is co-anchor of the ABC news program This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts and congressional analyst for ABC News. She also serves as a news analyst for National Public Radio.

Steve Roberts’ distinguished career includes service as White House and congressional correspondent for The New York Times and senior political writer for U.S. News & World Report. A well-known commentator on radio and television, he appears regularly on public television’s Washington Week in Review and CNN’s Late Edition. Currently he is Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.

Cokie and Steve Roberts also write a weekly column for the New York Daily News that is syndicated in major newspapers around the country. They live in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Compiler’s Note: Sadly, Cokie Roberts died on September 17, 2019, at the age of 75.

From the Dust Jacket: I remember very clearly a little talk Ralph and I had just before we were married.

“Louise,” said Ralph at the time, “there is one thing that I could not tolerate your doing to me. You must never bring them into our home, and particularly not into our bedroom.”

“You mean, other men?” I said incredulously.

“No,” said Ralph. “Plastic flowers. Everything else is negotiable.”

Louise DeGrave writes about the curious marital predicament of having a raised consciousness but a contradictory reality. In other words, this is the true story of how a wife picked up dirty socks all the way to her tenth wedding anniversary while attending assertiveness training classes. From This Day Forward looks at a whole bumper crop of equally perplexing and deliciously ludicrous dilemmas in a wide range of issues: household chores, religion, sex, in-laws, infertility, adoption and subsequent pregnancy (it always happens!), money, guilt, and more guilt.

Louise DeGrave reveals who the real power people in America are in “Sitter power,” outlines the difficulties of simultaneously developing a roll of film and cooking dinner in “Ansel Adams never had it like this,” illustrates the utter futility of arguing women’s rights with an old-school father-in-law in “In-laws: The third visit,” and despairs of ever truly reforming the Midnight Chef, with his boiled-over soup pans, in “Sloth be not proud.” The oppression of women, she solemnly asserts, can be summed up in one question: “Will someone be home all day Friday?”

From the predicaments of early married life—“Learning to cook (or, Never say die)” and “Finding compatible leisure-time activities (or, How I would have sold my soul to get off the ski slope)”—to the nitty-gritty issues of the “still marrieds”—“Money (or, What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine, until one of us comes into some assets)” and a proliferation of marriage options, “open, closed, or slightly ajar”—Louise DeGrave demythologizes the rites and rituals of married life with a humor that is sophisticated, slightly acerbic, and relentless.

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About the Author: Louise DeGrave is the product of a conservative French Catholic father, a liberal Protestant ex-DAR mother, and a self-made Jewish husband. She lives with her husband and two sons in La Jolla, California. This is her first book and her first marriage.

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Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, “Family Planning, Part 1: Adoption” (pp. 79-94).

From the Back Cover: In five, four, three, two, one ... take a deep breath; breathe in, breathe out, inhale, exhale ... I know it hurts. I know it was you who just screamed out loud and said, “This just CANNOT be happening to me!” But, wait one minute ... calm down. Hold on! You are STRONGER than you think. Help is at your fingertips—it is what you are holding in your hand. I pray that the contents of this book will hit you right where you live ... “Bam!” and cause the fighter in you to break out! While you read, you will learn about the tenacity and strength you need to push past obstacles and defy incredible odds, in order to reach your goal.

Be advised that although your life can change in an instant, your outlook will determine your outcome! Be prepared! This book will show you that good things come from troublesome times, and that out of difficulties grow miracles. You may feel like you are in a boxing ring and the referee has almost counted you out—he has almost reached the end of the ten-count and your heart is racing, but guess what? This book is your refresher—where the coach gets you in the corner and gets you back into the fight, so you can win! Get up! It is not over! Dry your tears! In this book you will see struggles and adversities, but I am here to tell you it does not have to end there, you can overcome. Even through your trials you can triumph!

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From first-time author Terry Skepple, comes a long-anticipated, warmhearted chronicle of one couple’s courageous journey in adopting a baby boy from Haiti. The book is aptly entitled, From Trials to Triumph. Through the pages, Mrs. Skepple provides vivid, in-depth details of the experiences she and her husband faced throughout the adoption process. With refreshing candor, she describes the inner-workings of Haitian adoptions, taking the reader from a beginning with heart-wrenching pain to an entirely triumphant end. From Trials to Triumph is a phenomenal read that will pull your heartstrings and inspire you to press through and overcome your own personal obstacles.

Yvette Hale experienced firsthand the struggles of building a family from scratch over and over. Through childbirth and adoption, Yvette struggles with divorce, remarriage, child-rearing, and even a surgery that keeps her from getting pregnant again. But when she wants to reverse the surgery with her third husband, the results may keep her from having biological children ever again. Will Yvette be able to have another child of her own, or will her life become full circle as she and her husband consider adopting a child of their own?

It’s no secret that private domestic and international adoption can be expensive. The realization that it costs thousands and thousands of dollars can be overwhelming and frustrating. You don’t have to be wealthy to adopt, but you need more than just ideas and a big heart. You need a plan! Fund Your Adoption is your step-by-step guide to launch your fundraising and adopt debt-free. Author Jeremy Resmer walks you through the exact steps that he and his wife used to raise more than $47,000 and adopt without going into debt. You will learn about more than 60 adoption grants and tips to apply, the top adoption crowdfunding sites, effective fundraising ideas, creative budgeting strategies, the Adoption Tax Credit and much more! Plus, you get access to the proven adoption fundraising system that will help you get organized and set funding goals, develop your plan, track your expenses, manage your adoption grants and even how to apply smart social media strategies to share your story and engage more people.

From the Dust Jacket: Never has there been a book of poems quite like Gabriel, in which a short life, a bewildering death, and the unanswerable sorrow of a father come together in such a sustained elegy. This unabashed sequence speaks directly from Hirsch’s heart to our own, without sentimentality. From its opening lines—“The funeral director opened the coffin / And there he was alone / From the waist up”—Hirsch’s account is poignantly direct and open to the strange vicissitudes and tricks of grief. In propulsive three-line stanzas, he tells the story of how a once unstoppable child, who suffered from various developmental disorders, turned into an irreverent young adult, funny, rebellious, impulsive. Hirsch mixes his tale of Gabriel with the stories of other poets through the centuries who have also lost children, and expresses his feelings through theirs. His landmark poem enters the broad stream of human grief and raises in us the strange hope, even consolation, that we find in the writer’s act of witnessing and transformation. It will be read and reread.

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About the Author: Edward Hirsch has published eight books of poetry and five books of prose. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Compiler’s Note: In 2011, Hirsch’s 22-year-old son, whom he and his wife had adopted following years of unsuccessful fertility treatments (which the author explored in his poem, “The Welcoming”), died of an accidental drug overdose.

By the Same Author: How to Adopt From Asia, Europe and the South Pacific (with Gay R Hallberg; 1983, Los Niños); How to Adopt From Central and South America (1989, Los Niños); Butterflies in the Wind: Spanish/Indian Children with White Parents (1992, Los Niños); How to Adopt Internationally: A Guide for Agency-Directed and Independent Adoption (1992, Los Niños); Butterflies in the Wind: The Truth About Latin American Adoptions (2004, Authors Choice Press); Inside the Adoption Agency: Understanding Intercountry Adoption in the Era of the Hague Convention (2007, iUniverse); and My Portable Life: Reluctant Runaway Finds Families for Thousands of Children (2009, iUniverse), among others.

The Garbage Bag Kids is a true story of one family’s 30 years experience as therapeutic foster parents. As seen through the eyes of foster parents, it includes becoming a foster parent, working with Dept. of Children and Family Services, the stories of the children placed in their home, the trials and triumphs of foster children, and final outcomes for these “chosen” children within the foster care system.

The Gathering is the account of an incredibly courageous woman. The Gathering is the story of a mother, with the support of her husband and children, who searched for her missing children in the jungles of the Marshal Islands, the poverty-choked country of Vietnam, and the corrupt country of Haiti. The Gathering is a story of a family that fought and struggled to find their children in the U.S. through private adoptions and state foster-care systems. The Gathering is an incredible story of faith, hope, and miracles. This is their story.

From the Dust Jacket: An evolution has quietly been occurring in the world of parenting. Thousands of children have found loving homes with gay fathers. This book is a celebration of all of these remarkable new families.

Gay Dads features twenty-four personal accounts from men describing their unique journeys to fatherhood via adoption, foster care, surrogacy, and even co-parenting, and the struggles and successes they have experienced raising their children. For most of the men featured in this book, parenthood did not come easily, but the rewards—as you will learn from them are immeasurable.

Together the stories in this book provide a powerful portrait of an extraordinary new family unit in America. With beautiful black-and-white photographs of each of the families, Gay Dads is a moving tribute to familial love.

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About the Author: David Strah left full-time work as a professional fund-raiser for various not-for-profit organizations to become a full-time father when his son was born in 1998. He lives with his partner, Barry Miguel, and their son and daughter in New York City.

Kris Timken has been a working photographer since the early 1980s. She has a BA from Stanford and a BFA with distinction from California College of Arts and Crafts.

Susanna Margolis is the author of many fiction and nonfiction works. She lives in New York City.

From the Back Cover: More and more gay men are becoming parents, and in Gay Fatherhood, Ellen Lewin presents an in-depth look at the experiences of this surprisingly overlooked group. Lewin takes as her focus people who undertake the difficult process of becoming fathers as gay men, rather than having become fathers while married to women. These men face many challenges in their quest for fatherhood, overcoming unique bureaucratic and financial hurdles as they pursue adoption or surrogacy and juggling questions about their future child’s race, age, sex, and health. Gay Fatherhood chronicles the lives of these men, exploring how they cope with political attacks from both the Right and the Left—while also shedding light on the evolving meanings of family in twenty-first-century America.

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About the Author: Ellen Lewin is professor in the departments of Women’s Studies and Anthropology at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Recognizing Ourselves: Ceremonies of Lesbian and Gay Commitment and Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture.

From the Publisher: “Into the classroom of the author was thrust one day a Latvian boy of eleven, who had been bombed out of an orphanage in Latvia by the Russians and who barely kept alive in one D.P. camp after another until he was brought to America after the war.” The boy ended up joining her family, and this book recounts the process of his return to health, a learning process and a challenge for all concerned. Parts of this book appeared in the [May 1954 issue of] Ladies’ Home Journal under the title “Frightened Boy.”

From the Dust Jacket: From his school days to his tragic early death, George Orwell, who never wrote an autobiography, chronicled the dramatic events of his turbulent life in a profusion of powerful letters. Indeed, one of the twentieth century’s most revered icons was a lively, prolific correspondent who developed in rich, nuanced dispatches the ideas that would influence generations of writers and intellectuals. This historic work-never before published in America and featuring many previously unseen letters—presents an account of Orwell’s interior life as personal and absorbing as readers may ever see.

Over the course of a lifetime, Orwell corresponded with hundreds of people, including many distinguished political and artistic figures. Witty, personal, and profound, the letters tell the story of Orwell’s passionate first love that ended in devastation and explain how young Eric Arthur Blair chose the pseudonym “George Orwell.” In missives to luminaries such as T.S. Eliot, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Cyril Connolly, and Henry Miller, he spells out his literary and philosophical beliefs. Readers will encounter Orwell’s thoughts on matters both quotidian (poltergeists and the art of playing croquet) and historical—including his illuminating descriptions of war-shattered Barcelona and pronouncements on bayonets and the immanent cruelty of chaining German prisoners.

The letters also reveal the origins of his famous novels. To a fan he wrote, “I think, and have thought ever since the war began ... that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.” A paragraph before, he explained that the British intelligentsia in 1944 were “perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history,” prefiguring the themes of 1984. Entrusting the manuscript of Animal Farm to Leonard Moore, his literary agent, Orwell describes it as “a sort of fairy story, really a fable with political meaning. ... This book is murder from the Communist point of view.”

Hardly known outside a small circle of Orwell scholars, these rare letters include Orwell’s message to Dwight Macdonald of 5 December 1946 explaining Animal Farm; his correspondence with his first translator, R.N. Raimbault (with English translations of the French originals); and the moving encomium written about Orwell by his BBC head of department after his service there. The volume concludes with a fearless account of the painful illness that took Orwell’s life at age forty-seven. His last letter concerns his son and his estate and closes with the words, “Beyond that I can’t make plans at present.”

Meticulously edited and fully annotated by Peter Davison, the world’s preeminent Orwell scholar, the volume presents Orwell “in all his varieties” and his relationships with those most close to him, especially his first wife, Eileen. Combined with rare photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, George Orwell: A Life in Letters offers “everything a reader new to Orwell needs to know ... and a great deal that diehard fans will be enchanted to have” (New Statesman).

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About the Author: George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) (1903-1950) wrote fiction, journalism, criticism, and poetry. His nine books include the classics Animal Farm and 1984.

Peter Davison edited the twenty volumes of Orwell’s Complete Works (with Ian Angus and Sheila Davison).

Making the decision to adopt a child is one of the most important decisions you can make. Understanding the adoption process is a big key to setting your expectations and ensuring that you can make the decision to adopt, or not to adopt, based on facts. When you understand the adoption process, you will feel confident that your dream of becoming a parent will come true. Getting Acquainted With the Adoption Process was written to have you be informed about the adoption process so that you will be able to navigate with ease through all of the nuances associated with adoption. First you need to understand the adoption process. Then, you need to understand all of the terms used by adoption professionals. Lastly, you need to be aware of the costs involved. You get all of this information and more in Getting Acquainted With The Adoption Process. Wouldn’t you like to adopt a child while dodging most of the bureaucratic headache and getting your child faster than you ever thought possible? Adopting a child is one of the noblest things someone can do It takes a special type of person to adopt a child. The act of pouring yourself out into a child is a selfless one. Pouring yourself into a child that isn’t your own is even more so. More and more children need parents everyday. And more and more couples are looking to adopt. But many people just don’t know how the process works, much less how to succeed within it. That is why this book was written.

From the Publisher: This book reads as easily as a suspense novel, yet it provides a realistic glimpse into the difficult process of adoption and surrogacy for all prospective parents. It is true story of a long-time loving couple whose lives are rich and full except for having a family of their own. Getting Simon follows their trials and tribulations in trying to become fathers. They are determined to be parents in spite of dead-end leads, conflicting medical and legal advice, disappearing birth mothers, failed adoptions, unreliable surrogates, and, of course, prejudice. This book has been nominated for an American Library Association award.

From the Dust Jacket: In 1970 Doug and Gloria Bates adopted a four-year-old black girl as a sister to their two biological white sons. Two years later they adopted another black girl. Gift Children is the story of the twenty-three-year interracial journey that ensued, a story that helps illuminate race relations in America today while depicting both the harsh difficulties as well as the heartwarming rewards that followed.

Gift Children is an intimate portrait of race relations told through the history of the Bates family. It is a deeply American story about bringing up children (in this case, in Eugene, Oregon), about celebrating and growing together, about coping with family tensions and dilemmas, and about negotiating the difficult years of adolescence and young adulthood. While casting a sharp light on the racism that lies all about us—and often within us as well—it is preeminently a book about caring, trusting, loving, and working together. Gift Children describes the problems, setbacks, and pain of a family’s attempt to live interracially, but ultimately it tells of a signal success hard won in an imperfect world. All who are interested in families, adoption, and race relations in America will find Gift Children an important and moving book.

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About the Author: J. Douglas Bates was managing editor of the Register Guard in Eugene, Oregon, and general news editor of the Seattle Times. The author of The Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Bates lives with his wife in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and is at work on his next book.

From the Back Cover: An adopted Chinese girl reaches the magical age of sixteen. On the morning of her Sweet 16 birthday party, her father places a DVD in her hands and says, “This is a movie I produced years ago. It’s the story of how you became my daughter. Happy birthday.” Can you imagine the range of emotions she would feel as she stares at her baby photo on the DVD cover of this gift? A Gift for Lila Rose is the heart-warming memoir of a China adoption and the unlikely success of the movie it inspired. Its message of love and miracles is a triumph of the human spirit and a testament to the power of faith.

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About the Author: Fred Ford is an award-winning comic, filmmaker, and certified consultant with Bob Proctor’s Life Success company. This is Fred’s first book. He lives in Bellport, New York, with his wife, Dorothy, and daughter, Lila Rose.

Like every little girl, Sue dreamed of her handsome prince, a couple cute kids and a life of happily ever after. She was sure she would get it too because she is a very determined woman. But God had other plans for her. It took a while for Sue to accept them but once she did, she found that life has a way of making dreams come true after all. This is a true story of our adoption experience. The names of all parties have been changed to protect them. Adoption is not an easy process, and may feel difficult and even unfair at times, but the outcome is worth it. I hope you find at least one nugget of help or encouragement in the pages of this book.