The primary goal of this book is to share insights and provide guidance and support for parents trying to work through the myriad issues that children with attachment disorders encounter during their growth and maturation processes. The Invisible Road addresses many of the difficulties commonly experienced by families who adopt children with these problems. Written from the perspective of a parent, who is also a professional, this book gives user friendly, easily understood information that can be adapted by families for use with schools, family members, and others who are part of the child’s life.

We were not pursuing adoption when we came across a picture on my sister’s bulletin board. In the picture were two little girls sitting in a toy car. The picture, though cute, did not initially pull me in, but as the day wore on, there was a pressing in of one simple question. “What about you?” Six months later, we were on a plane heading for Uganda with $12,000 sewn in on the insides of our shirts!

From the Back Cover: Would adopting a child be a good choice for you? Would you want to adopt an infant or an older child? What about a child from another country? A child of another race? Would you be willing to adopt a child with medical problems? Could you agree to involvement and openness with the birth mother? Would you be better off working with an agency or an attorney? Do you have to be married? How much does it really cost?

Before you decide, make sure you have all the facts. In this warm, straightforward new book, adoption expert—and adoptive parent—Christine Adamec gives you the information you need to make this important decision. From financial considerations to the myriad emotional issues involved, there are numerous questions to explore. Adamec’s expert guidance, drawn from personal stories, clinical studies, and academic research, helps you find the answers that are right for you.

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About the Author: Christine Adamec is the publisher of Adoption/Medical News and the author of several books about adoption, including The Encyclopedia of Adoption and There Are Babies to Adopt. She writes a monthly column for National Adoption Reports, published by the National Council for Adoption. An adoptive mother, Ms. Adamec founded an adoptive parent support group, Parents Adopting Children Everywhere, and served on the statewide Florida Advisory Council on Adoption.

I tell the true story of how I came to adopt four children from four different ethnicities. The first chapter gives a brief history of my philosophies and the circumstances leading up to my decision to adopt. The first adoption takes place within the first chapter, and the remainder of the book is a step by step narration of all significant events relating to the adoption portion of my life. The main purpose of the book is to make readers aware of the devastating effects that any child’s early childhood experiences can have on him or her. I discuss my first two children, who were adopted at a very early age and have consequently grown up to be healthy, happy teenagers. I am able to use this experience as a contrast to my last two children, who were obtained from the social welfare system from horrendously negative living conditions at a much later age, around five years old. Hence, the title of the book. I am honestly asking if a child is “salvageable” at the age of five years, after experiencing years of neglect, abuse, and trauma after trauma. As an experienced social worker, I had the knowledge to be able to make full use of the system and resources available to adoptive families. In this book, I point out just how inadequate these resources are. In fact, many public policies relating to the world of adoption are downright detrimental to the child’s health and growth. I talk about the many people, both professional and lay, involved in our lives, some of whom have been extraordinarily helpful and others, well ... who haven’t. I bring the readers through my own difficulties throughout this period; my divorce, my alcoholism, my suicidality, and finally, my spiritual awakening. Although the book ends before the children are fully grown adults, I make it clear that the older two are well on their ways to success. I lastly talk about the prognosis for the younger two and my concerns and/or joys for their futures. I answer my own question at the end of the book and give the readers many options (throughout the book) for procedures to avoid and/or repair early childhood trauma.

From the Back Cover: The social worker was enthusiastic when I first explained my background to her, but went a bit quiet when I explained that my partner was a woman. She took all our details and said she had a number of other families interested in the girls and would get back to us if she wanted more information. She never did. I rang a while later to find out what had happened and they said they were looking at another family for the girls, but thank you for our interest. Thanks, but no thanks, was becoming a pretty universal message.

This is the heart-warming true story of Ruby and Gail and their belief in their potential to adopt. Some of the social workers they encounter think that, as a lesbian couple, they are unfit to be parents; others recognise that their Asian dual-heritage family has much to offer. This story charts their journey to becoming parents to their three daughters and offers a glimpse of their family life over 18 extraordinary years.

Is It True You Have Two Mums? is the twelfth title in BAAF’s popular Our Story series, which provides an insight into the highs and lows of adoption and fostering through the real life experiences of a wide range of families. It will be of particular interest to lesbian and gay adoptive parents and prospective adopters as well as adoption social workers and child care professionals.

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About the Author: Ruby Clay is an Asian lesbian trainer and writer, who lives in the north of England with her partner, her three daughters and her elderly father. She enjoys hill-walking and writing fiction, and travels with her family to Scotland on a regular basis and to India whenever she can.

From the Back Cover: On the day she was born in 1950 as one of two identical twins, Patty O’Leary Emry’s formidable challenges were only just beginning. The exhilaration of welcoming new life quickly gave way to desperation as doctors discovered that Patty had multiple congenital difficulties. With underdeveloped digestive, urinary tract, and reproductive systems, the prognosis was grim. When the hospital staff declared that the baby would die within a few days, her steadfast parents refused to give up hope, and they firmly insisted that Patty be given a fighting chance—after all, she deserved every chance at life.

After ground breaking operations, doctors were able to reconstruct the tiny infant’s digestive organs. It was a miracle that this premature baby survived such procedures, and before long, Patty’s tenacious spirit quickened and flourished. But tragedy struck the family again when, Patty’s twin sister, Catherine, died only three months after being born.

Despite the pain of becoming a “twinless twin” and in the face of daily difficulties that many could consider discouraging, Patty rallied and cultivated a robust and outrageous approach to life that has seen her through over twenty-two surgeries in her lifetime. You, the reader, can also lay hold of the transformative power of laughter and positivity in every circumstance. So whether you’re sixteen or ninety-nine, throw off those shackles of self-doubt and despair, put on your dancing shoes, and do the funky chicken on the nearest tabletop—because It Takes a Sense of Humour!

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About the Author: With a degree in Physical Education and Art from Central Washington University, Patty O’Leary Emry took a running leap into a teaching and coaching career which she enjoys to this day. A robust combination of faith, family, sport, and a sense of humour has lifted her beyond her physical and emotional limits; this outward focus also serves her deepest passion to encourage and empower others to learn how to “balance forward.” A lover of painting, music, and dancing, she lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with the love of her life, Greg Dean Emry.

From the Publisher: Take a journey of self-discovery and healing. Learn about the short but unforgettable life of Casey Jang-Joon Candelaria, a boy adopted from Busan, South Korea, who found a loving family and home in the American Southwest. Casey’s vibrant personality had an impact on his family members and on everyone who knew him. His early death at age 25 left his family shocked and devastated. Author Neil Candelaria, Casey’s father, shares his experiences as a parent coping with the loss of a child. He weaves together anecdotes of life with Casey and unexplained but encouraging events which occurred after Casey’s death. A former criminal court judge, Neil relates how he overcame his reliance on physical proof and came to believe in life after death. This poignant story explores personal tragedy to find inner discovery and hope, as Neil unravels the meaning of Casey’s last text message: “It’s all good.”

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About the Author: Neil Candelaria is a former prosecutor and retired criminal law judge. He has lived in New Mexico most of his life and currently lives in Albuquerque with his wife Alice. His desire is to help other parents who have suffered the loss of a son or daughter.

An action packed adventure about abandoned babies, foster care and adoption. True stories of abused children and the traumas they endured and how they succeeded in life. Children that were destined for dumpsters or death and were saved by a foster mom that cared.

Have you ever heard the quote “We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give” by Winston Churchill? or the quote “Give me a child until he’s 7 and I will give you the man” by St. Francis Xavier?, the journey that this true family story will take you on will be an amazing in depth look into the positive impact we can have in this world, in the lives of our children and those surrounding us.

This isn’t your typical book about autism. It’s a heck of a lot funnier! You won’t find a lost or lonely kid on the cover, you won’t find a guide telling you what to do and what not to do with your autistic child and you definitely won’t find a nonsense miracle cure that will make your kid “normal.” No, this isn’t that kind of book. This is my raw, emotional but successful journey about how we battled through the never-ending maze of autism to learn just how incredibly AU-some our son truly is. Now, that’s not to say it was an easy road, nor did I always embrace it, but that’s what this book is about. This is my story about how I became the mom that my son needed me to be, to be his voice when he didn’t have one. I wasn’t always enthused by the idea about my son being different, especially when not only did I have to be a super-mom, I had to learn to be his therapist, his teacher, his advocate, and his fighter in a boxing ring with a bunch of administrators that wanted to slap a label on him and pass him down the special education assembly line. But this is our journey as a family through the crazy world of autism, from its simple but triumphant moments to the nights we cried ourselves to sleep. This is my adventure of how I became an AU-some mom while happily losing my sanity along the way. It’s about how although I used to feel alone and depressed about the dreaded diagnosis of the A-word, I knew I had to use all the love in my heart for my son to fuel and drive him to succeed in a world where some would have given up on him. It’s about how we took the cards we were dealt in life and made them into a winning hand, how we got back up after getting knocked on our butts time and time again, and how our love, faith and commitment to our son will continue to get us through. Consider this my hand held out to parents just like me, who sometimes need a lifeline to get them through the rough waters. I’m battling through it with you. You’re not alone. Crack this sucker open, and I’ll show you, it’s okay to say the A-word.

From the Dust Jacket: “When Benny Kubelsky was born, who in their wildest dreams would imagine that, eighty years later, at the event of his passing, every television program, every radio show would stop, ... and that every magazine and newspaper would headline it on their front pages?” For Bob Hope, as for millions of Americans, the story of the tenth-grade dropout from Waukegan, Illinois, who left home to play the violin in a vaudeville act was little short of a miracle. When Benny Kubelsky changed his name, he could not have known it would become one of the most famous in entertainment history—Jack Benny.

But his story is more than a rags-to-riches success—it is the story behind his famous on-the-air feud with Fred Allen, and the story of the Golden Era in Hollywood, of Frank Sinatra and Gregory Peck and George Burns and their fabulous extravaganzas—and of great tragedy. It is the story of a man whose world shook with the death of Al Jolson and who spent long hours of vigil beside Clark Gable after Carole Lombard’s fatal accident.

It is also that rarity, the story of a man in love with his own wife, so much so that his will provided her with roses, one a day for the rest of her life. Mary Livingstone Benny and her brother Hilliard Marks along with Marcia Borie have collaborated in this book to bring the Jack Benny only they could know to his adoring public. The result is an intimate portrait of a most compassionate, generous, extraordinary man.

This is the story of a little girl named Jackie. The story attempts to explore her short life and how she impacted those who shared it with her.

From the Back Cover: Come with Jeanie Shaw on an incredible journey of faith and love ... Jacob’s Journey. Jeanie shares the story of her family’s adoption of a Romanian orphan and the insights she gained about God’s adoption of his children. Heart-moving and heart-challenging, this book will bring tears and smiles, heartaches and belly laughs ... all wrapped up together. Jacob will journey right into your heart and give you a deeper understanding of adoption and a more personal relationship to your heavenly Father.

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About the Author: Jeanie Whitehead Shaw grew up in Gainesville, Florida, where she became a Christian as a teenager. She graduated from the University of Florida, where she met her husband-to-be, Wyndham Shaw. As a young married couple, they worked for five years in the campus ministry in Raleigh, North Carolina, serving the campuses of North Carolina State, the University of North Carolina and Duke University. Then, over an eight-year period, they worked with the churches in Morgantown, West Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

For the past fourteen years they have been with the church in Boston, where they currently serve as elder and wife, and evangelist and women’s ministry leader. Wyndham now also serves as the Executive Director of HOPE worldwide New England, a non-profit benevolent organization. Jeanie serves as Director of Program Development. She develops programs such as the HOPE worldwide Family Center in Romania and the New England Permanent Families Program, which includes foster care, home studies. post-placement training and support, and various other programs throughout the Northeast and Europe. Through HOPE worldwide, she is also a representative to the United Nations advisory council.

Jeanie and Wyndham have four children: Melissa, Kristen, Sam and Jacob, and they have one son “by marriage”: Kevin Miller, who is married to Melissa. They are raising an exemplary family, and have taught innumerable classes and seminars on marriage and family. They are known in the churches worldwide for their wisdom, compassion and insight.

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By the Same Author: Understanding Goose: For Anyone Who Has Felt Different, Rejected or Empty (2011) and My Morning Cup, and Other Spiritual Thoughts (2011).

Janani or mother as the creator of life, defines this narrative collection. The book brings together autobiographical writings of women from many walks of life noted authors, artists, academics to share their experiences of being mothers, daughters or both. The accounts combine memory and nostalgia in nuanced detail, making each narrative heart-warming and at times, profoundly challenging. The contributors abandon their public faces to provide humane, intimate and compelling narratives. The collection includes accounts of adoptive motherhood, stepmothering and single motherhood. On the One hand, the reader encounters the wrenching pain of an abortion, while on the other, the choice of a women determined not to be a mother. The Janani stories vividly explore the whole gamut of motherhood. Immensely readable, the volume has a wide appeal not just for mothers and daughters, but for fathers and sons as well, in fact for all those who celebrate the rare gift of human relationships.

From the Dust Jacket: The Outlaw: Forty years after the release of this motion picture, its title still conjures up an image of a dark-haired female—peasant blouse hanging loosely from her shoulders, lips sensuously pouted, with an ample bosom and long legs—reclining seductively on a stack of hay. Her name was Jane Russell and both the movie and the girl evoked theatrical notoriety.

A five-year publicity campaign was launched and a new sex-symbol was created. She was not characterized as the “girl-next-door.” Rather, she was lust, desire and everything good boys were not supposed to think about. But think about her they did, and the box-office zoomed. The American G.I. returning from the perils of World War Il was eager for more than just his childhood sweetheart, and Jane Russell fit the bill. Even today, she remains the advertising symbol of the “full-figured” female.

But beneath the photographer’s delight, Jane Russell was the girl-next-door. Destined to marry her own high school sweetheart, football legend Robert Waterfield, and become the mother of three adopted children, she founded WAIF, a national adoption organization. Her primary goals were never her movie career and stardom, but instead her close relationship with her family and friends, and her own personal faith in the Lord. Jane’s rise to stardom under the direction of Howard Hughes, her legendary long-term contract, and her succession of rises and falls in the film industry were all the public was to know of this warm, down-to-earth humanitarian whose love for children set her apart and about which she writes in her candid autobiography.

Nine years ago, Pam Cope owned a cozy hair salon in the tiny town of Neosho, Missouri, and her life revolved around her son’s baseball games, her daughter’s dance lessons, and family trips to places like Disney World. She had never been out of the country, nor had she any desire to travel far from home. Then, on June 16th, 1999, her life changed forever with the death of her 15-year-old son from an undiagnosed heart ailment. Needing to get as far away as possible from everything that reminded her of her loss, she accepted a friend’s invitation to travel to Vietnam, and, from the moment she stepped off the plane, everything she had been feeling since her son’s death began to shift. By the time she returned home, she had a new mission: to use her pain to change the world, one small step at a time, one child at a time. Today, she is the mother of two children adopted from Vietnam. More than that, she and her husband have created a foundation called “Touch A Life,” dedicated to helping desperate children in countries as far-flung as Vietnam, Cambodia and Ghana. Pam Cope’s story is on one level a moving, personal account of loss and recovery, but on a deeper level, it offers inspiration to anyone who has ever suffered great personal tragedy or those of us who dream about making a difference in the world.

From the Dust Jacket: In this stunning biography of Josephine Baker, Phyllis Rose brings us into the glitter of Paris in the ’20s, through Europe transformed by the rise of Hitler, to the last thirty-five years of Baker’s life when she became a civil rights activist and adopted twelve children from around the world, whom she called her “Rainbow Tribe.”

From the poverty of Baker’s childhood in St. Louis to the worldwide fame she experienced at her peak, Rose traces Baker’ life in exquisite detail, not only capturing the essence of the famous singer, but also the cultural and historical circumstances that both shaped and mirrored her life: her struggles in a Europe torn by hate and suspicion; her undercover work for the French Resistance during World War II; her fabulous tours around the world and the children she brought back from the countries she visited; the sad later days of poverty and struggle; the gratifying comeback just before her death; and her glorious state funeral in Paris, her adopted home.

At the heart of the book is Baker’s struggle to overcome the limitations imposed by the color of her skin. But beyond the difficult questions of race and culture, Jazz Cleopatra is, above all, the compelling story of a St. Louis girl with a toothy grin who parlayed her charm, vivacity, and gift for clowning into international stardom.

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About the Author: Phyllis Rose is the author of Woman of Letters: A Life of Virginia Woolf, which was nominated for the National Book Award in 1978, and of the highly acclaimed and enduringly popular Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages, which established her as a biographer of the first rank. She has taught literature at Wesleyan University since 1969, and has written essays, reviews, and articles for many publications, including the “Hers” column for the New York Times. Rose received Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships to write Jazz Cleopatra. She lives in Middletown, Connecticut.

From the Publisher: Losing a child is the worst pain a parent can ever feel. Gerald Lishka recounts in the poignant story of a father’s loss of his child as well as the transformation and triumph of life over death, of spirit over body. Painfully powerful, Jenny is rich with love, understanding, and inspiration destined to change lives. This story will touch your heart and warm your spirit.

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About the Author: Trained as a concert pianist, Gerald R. Lishka has worked as a classical musician, dance accompanist, composer, and recording artist. He also has professional experience in real estate, drafting, and commercial interior design. Since 1985, he has resided in Los Angeles, where he has been an administrative and contracts manager for a number of prestigious planning, design, and construction firms. His Galde Press books include Darkness is Light Enough, Jenny: A Father’s Story, and Kaleidoscope.

Eighteen years of marriage to get your greatest dream, a daughter. Jesus and Jamie takes you on a journey navigating the dark side of the world of adoption. The ride takes you on an appearance on Dateline: Encounters with the FBI, heartbreak, and finally, joy. Just when life finally turns out as you hope, cancer! Three major surgeries and years of treatment are in front of you. Now you must fight with every breath to stay alive for that daughter. Two things give you the inspiration to do so: Jesus and Jamie. This is a story of a mother’s love and God’s grace.

From the Dust Jacket: Few Hollywood careers have been more fabulous, more scandalous, more dizzyingly from-rags-to-riches and from-triumph-to-tragedy, more glaringly limelit than that of Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur in 1906 (or 1908, according to her press releases) in Texas. Miss Crawford rose from being a telephone operator in Kansas City (under the name Billie Cassin, since her mother had remarried) to a chorus line in Springfield, Missouri. and from there—as if propelled by one high, miraculous kick—came to MGM, fame, glamour, glitter, romance, and ultimate stardom.

For many people Joan Crawford was more than a star; she was the star, the very symbol of those dazzling movie queens whose faces were more famous throughout the world than those of emperors, dictators or presidents, and whose very appearance could create a riot—as Miss Crawford once did in New York’s Grand Central Terminal. She was a tough, ambitious, gutsy and fiercely competitive person, a complete professional when it came to making movies, a star on or off the stage. Her energy was inexhaustible and legendary, as was her temper, and her marriages were stormy and violent, whether with fellow-star Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. or with Pepsi-Cola executive Alfred Steele, who made her Pepsi’s ambassador to the world and died leaving her almost penniless.

Joan Crawford’s love affairs were the stuff of countless gossip columns, as widely publicized as her movies—and seldom indeed has a life been lived more in the limelight of publicity. Yet in this definitive, powerful and dramatic biography, Bob Thomas, dean of Hollywood biographers, has recreated the real life of Joan Crawford: her lonely, terrible death; her search for her father (who abandoned her at an early age and reappeared in her life when she was a star); her struggles to reach the top; the scandals that haunted her life (including the rumor that she had appeared in a blue movie and that Louis B. Mayer had paid a king’s ransom to buy the negative and destroy it); her tortured relationships with her adopted children; her drinking; and her courageous decision to resume work after Steele’s death.

Here, at last, is the complete and extraordinary story of Joan Crawford’s life, her films, her marriages, her secrets and her loves, in an intimate biography that delineates the character and the personality of the Ultimate Star.

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About the Author: Bob Thomas interviewed Joan Crawford many times over a thirty-month period and conducted more than a hundred interviews with her coworkers and acquaintances to research this biography.

Born in San Diego, Thomas grew up in Los Angeles, where his father was a film publicist. After schooling at UCLA, Thomas joined the Associated Press in Los Angeles, and has reported for the Hollywood scene for thirty-five years. His is the author of many books, including biographies of Harry Cohn, Irving Thalberg, David O. Selznick, Marlon Brando and Walt Disney. His books about Howard Hughes and Abbott and Costello have been made into television movies.

The father of three daughters, Bob Thomas lives in Encino with his wife, Patricia.

From the Dust Jacket: In the first biography of Joan Crawford to give the full, uncensored story, best-selling author David Bret tells of Crawford’s rags-to-riches climb, from working in a Kansas City laundry to collecting an Oscar for her defining role in Mildred Pierce, and on to her devotion to Christian Science and reliance on vodka. He discusses the star’s legendary relationship with Clark Gable, her countless love affairs, her marriages—three of them to gay men—and her obsession with rough sex. Bret divulges what really happened that led her to disinherit two of her four children, earning her the nickname “Mommie Dearest,” as well as how her loathed mother forced Crawford to work as a prostitute, appear in pornographic films, and sleep her way to the top.

Bret analyzes Crawford’s films, many of which were constructed purely as Joan Crawford vehicles in which actress and character were often indistinguishable. Overtly generous toward her coterie of gay friends, she was unspeakably heartless toward her enemies, particularly Bette Davis, her costar in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, with whom she shared a lifelong feud.

Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material and interviews, including Marlene Dietrich and Douglas Fairbanks, David Bret presents a unique, fascinating portrait of a single-minded, uncompromising woman.

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About the Author: French-born David Bret is a leading celebrity biographer. His previous books include biographies of subjects as diverse as Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, Gracie Fields, George Formby, Morrissey, and Rock Hudson.

From the Dust Jacket: Meticulously researched, Joan Crawford: The Last Word deals in full with her long movie career and explores in detail her turbulent private life. Respected biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles uses newly discovered sources and recent interviews with many who knew her, and some who loved her, to establish the person behind the carefully crafted screen icon.

For most of her adult life she was a Star who dedicated herself entirely to her career. But since her death her luster has been tarnished. Here, at last, is a biography that sets the record straight.

In her heyday Joan Crawford was probably the most imitated woman in the world. Magazine covers featured her face, and high school and college girls copied her makeup and clothing.

Born Lucille LeSuer in Kansas City, she spent her childhood on the edge of poverty. But an iron will developed in adolescence drove her to New York City and eventual work in a chorus line. Spotted by a Hollywood talent scout, she was soon on her way to the film capital.

Four times married (to actors Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Franchot Tone, Philip Terry, and Pepsi-Cola executive Alfred Steele) and driven by a powerful sexuality, Joan Crawford lived her life on the razor’s edge. Yet she was a woman of great generosity who cared deeply for her four adopted children, although her ideas of discipline were colored by her own harsh upbringing. Her professional career spanned more than forty years and included such classics as Grand Hotel, Mildred Pierce, and MU Her remarkable progression from silent films to talkies to television exemplified her ability to adapt, chameleon-like, to the ever-changing demands of the industry that in many senses invented her.

Joan Crawford: The Last Word does not cloak the dark side of Crawford’s nature. This unbiased account restores the much-needed balance between those who regard her as the monster depicted in Mommie Dearest and the truth about a legendary star.

Illustrated with more than thirty photographs, many previously unpublished.

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About the Author: Fred Lawrence Guiles was a playwright in New York in 1960 when he visited Virginia City, Nevada, to finish his play City on the Comstock. While there he encountered the film location sites of The Misfits, where he made the acquaintance of Marilyn Monroe. A few years later he wrote the book Norma Jean, which to this day is considered the best of the Monroe biographies. It went through ten printings and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for many weeks.

Later successful biographical studies include Marion Davies, Tyrone Power: The Last Idol, Stan: The Life of Stanley Laurel and, more recently, Loner at the Ball: The Life of Andy Warhol. They have been published in Japanese, Spanish, German, French, and Swedish languages, among others. Joan Crawford: The Last Word is being published simultaneously in London.

Mr. Guiles makes his home in Florida.

From the Publisher: Joined at the Heart is a compelling saga of love and determination to overcome insurmountable odds. It is a story of a birth mother and an adoptive mother who become joined at the heart by a child they both love. This story is an inspiration guide to those struggling with issues in adoption, substance abuse, or loss of a loved one, Nance Vizedom offers hope and courage to anyone whose life has been touched by grief and personal turmoil. The insights this book offers may change your life. If you have been touched by adoption or are thinking of searching for a loved one lost by the adoption process, this book is a must read.

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About the Author: Nance Vizedom, a secondary teacher with her master’s degree, advocates education to combat the detrimental factors of drug and alcohol abuse and issues of multifaceted family life including families separated by divorce or by adoption. She supports reform of the exclusive use of closed adoption and closed records. She advocates participation in organizations providing support and encouragement to those searching for loved ones lost through the adoption process.

From the Dust Jacket: The Jonathon Letters: One Family’s Use of Support as They Took in, and Fell in Love With, a Troubled Child gathers together an exchange of letters between a foster/adopt mom and a specialized clinician far away. Their common interest: the struggle between a particularly wounded four-year-old boy who was certain he could not be loved, and the family with whom he had been placed, who were determined to love him. Unbeknownst to the correspondents, they were recording the story of the tortuously slow and unsteady opening up of the soul of a little boy...

The family happened to have that rare combination of internal and external resources that seem necessary, if any family is to survive the screaming, the resistance to attachment, the “crazy lying”, the aggressiveness, the manipulations, and the rage that are often seen in children with Reactive Attachment: Disorder. The reader is privileged to come to know a family with a unique persistence, and a driving energy that allowed them to keep bouncing back after each regression, and—ultimately—to understand Jonathon’s defiance and rage as his cry for the very thing he resisted the most.

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About the Author: Michael Trout has been working clinically with foster children, with all members of the adoption triad, and with both adults and children who experienced early disruptions in attachment, for three decades. He is the Director of The Infant-Parent Institute in Illinois, and is a father, stepfather, and grandpa.

Lori Thomas is an active advocate and public speaker on children’s issues. She is the mother of six (three adopted), and a foster parent. She is President and Founder of Hope Village, Inc., and lives with her husband, children, and two dogs in Northern Virginia.

From the Dust Jacket: Josephine Baker once told Jean-Claude Baker that after she died he would discover the truth about her. Now, after two decades of exhaustive worldwide research, he has done just that, but the truth turns out to be much more fascinating—and shocking—than the legends that have attached themselves to her.

Here’s the neglected child starving for attention in the slums of St. Louis, the uninhibited chorus girl who shamelessly stole the spotlight from the stars—and became the sensation of Europe.

Josephine was the self-proclaimed Universal Mother, who gathered children from many countries, the expatriate who was erratic about the civil rights movement, and the outrageous entertainer who dared to become the first black sex symbol of this century.

Jean-Claude Baker collected the voices of men and women who, over the decades, shared the stage with Josephine. Here are the tales of the great impresarios and showmen who toasted her name from Paris to Rio, of her friends, her enemies, her servants, her lovers, and her family.

Though she never knew her father, she always claimed to be of mixed racial heritage. She was a secret agent; she was kept by princes and sultans. She hated being black and never forgave white people for what they had done to her race.

In this rich and evocative biography, spiced with never-before-revealed facts and anecdotes Josephine Baker comes to life again. Through the monumental efforts of a man who has devoted a good part of his life to her memory, we see, at last, the complex woman who was one o our century’s most captivating celebrities—the one who broke all the rules.

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About the Author: Jean-Claude Baker was born in Dijon, France. At fourteen, while working as a bellhop in Paris, he met Josephine Baker. Her bold inspiration led him to pursue a remarkably colorful career that has included success as a nightclub owner, television producer, and restaurateur. Mr. Baker first came to the United States on Josephine Baker’s final American tour in 1973. He lives in New York City.

Chris Chase lives in New York City.

From the Dust Jacket: September

“This should have been my birthday month. To arrive in the world with the air so winy, the skies so blue, and the land sleeping under its late summer haze would have been a royal beginning indeed. But I was fated to be a March child, and, of course, there is something to be said for daffodils after all. At any rate, now that I have made the decision to gather up some fragments of my life and enclose them within a book, it shall know the joy of a September birth.”

Thus begins The Journal of a Happy Woman, with the awareness of Stillmeadow Calendar, and perception of Gift From the Sea, and the laughter of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, Mrs. Strong shares her family (six children, four of them adopted), her joys, her frustrations, and her victories—a year from her life.

Favorite recipes, poetry, a tour of Elm Valley Farm—including the special delight of a hidden prayer corner created from a weed patch—all weave together to format book few woman will be able to resist.

Down to earth, practical, and spiritual, yet whimsical and funny, June Strong’s book clamors to be read, cherished, and brought out again to reread when you need laughter or encouragement.

The Journal of a Happy Woman is a unique and special event in Seventh-day Adventist publishing. It is a book for women—all women.

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About the Author: June Kimball Strong majored in English at Atlantic Union College, South Lancaster, Massachusetts, and presently lives in upstate New York. As she describes in her correspondence, Mrs. Strong has mothered a family of six—“one married daughter, an Eskimo son, a Korean daughter, a Korean son, plus two more who arrived in the ordinary way.”

Mrs. Strong’s major hobbies are people and writing. Magazines in which her articles have appeared include Christian Life, Insight, and Review and Herald. In addition, she writes a monthly column for These Times. She also enjoys gardening and sewing when she finds the time.

Why did June Strong write Journal of a Happy Woman? The title suggests her answer: “Because it’s a joyous thing to follow Christ.” In this book the author shares her Christian enthusiasm with the reader, and it is contagious! Surely you will agree with one reader of Journal of a Happy Woman that “the description is so colorful, expressive, and human that I find myself living each day with her.”

As a foster Dad, I often envisioned my home as a waypoint, a temporary refuge, for children cast upon a sometimes perilous road towards a better future. My book, Journey Back Home, reflects that vision. It’s a true tale of life’s lessons as taught by the grace of more than sixty children who entered my home as strangers and left as sons and daughters. Nowadays foster parents get all kinds of training prior to opening their door to their first child, none of which provides the missing ingredient that a substitute Mom or Dad really needs: experience. That’s where Journey Back Home comes in. While I wrote it as an aid and inspiration for current and would-be foster parents, the narrative has relevance to anyone interested in dealing with difficult child behaviors or directing their children’s lives purposefully. My wife and I started fostering eleven years ago. We adopted our first foster child, and went on to provide a home for sixty other children over the years. My book is in part our story, but it is really about the children, and what they taught us about conducting them through the twists and turns of their journey back home.

From the Back Cover: When Melissa Pandolf and her husband, Doug, began the adoption process, the hopeful mother-to-be had her sights set on welcoming two beaming babies to quickly make the Pandolf house a family home. However, after three years; four trips to Russia; one to Washington, DC; and two plane crashes that threatened to bring their dream down around them, she came to realize that a bigger destiny awaited them on the other side o the world. As the adoptive parents of four Russian siblings, the young couple from Long {sland learned the true meaning of family, and what it means to go the extra mile to give your children what they need.

The Journey for Mama’s Babies chronicles the couple’s three-year odyssey to bring their children home. From the enthusiastic initial meeting to get the option under way, Pandolf shares every aspect o the experience, including the unexpected depression that was companion to the emotionally wrenching process. Enlightening, easy to read, an arrestingly honest, this tender, telling story of a family built across oceans, languages, and every imaginable obstacle will take hold of you heart, and make you hold your loved ones closer still.

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About the Author: Melissa R. Pandolf is a full-time mother who recently celebrated her twentieth year serving in the United States military and is currently in the Air National Guard. She lives with her family in Patchogue, Long Island. Her life, as crazy and hectic as it is, is perfect, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

William L White, “Bill White” of Kansas, went to England with a private memo—“uplook kids.” This memo, in cablese, recorded his desire to adopt an English child. Not long after he landed in England, White found Margaret, who at this time was three-and-a-half years old. Margaret was White’s personal job in England, and this is his personal book about Margaret and her England. His public job was writing dispatches for America, and he made it his business to see, hear, and feel all phases of the war. He spend nights at the R.A.F. flying posts, watching the bombers go off to Germany. He went mine-sweeping in the English Channel. He was bombed himself. This is the fiery background for Margaret, the little girl White was finally able to adopt and bring to America. With the thoughts, speech, and action of an embattled people focused through the story of a child, the reader feels as if he is reading for the first time the human story of England at war. Basis for the 1942 film of the same name, starring Robert Young, Laraine Day and Margaret O’Brien (in her first credited film role following an uncredited appearance as an orphan in Babes on Broadway).

The Journey of Adoption is our family’s journey from a small community in northwestern Minnesota to the mountains of Guatemala. This story unfolds the uniqueness of beginning with one child, giving birth to twins, and culminating in the addition of a sibling group of three older children from an orphanage in Guatemala. The book presents both our perspectives as parents and our children’s. The children’s contributions of original chapters, artwork, and poetry make this a one-of-a-kind inspirational story for all ages. The cover design is an original acrylic painting by Jenna, entitled, “A Mother’s Embrace.” This painting was created to capture the intimacy and bond between a mother and child. We pray our story will encourage others to step out in faith and become the hands and feet of Jesus. There are so many precious children who need to know and receive the Father’s love through adoption. Our journey reveals how God’s amazing heart moves mightily on behalf of His precious children awaiting a family. About the Author: Tammy Sorenson of Jaran Family Ministries and the arts express’d has been involved in music ministry since elementary school. She has a B.A. in Piano Performance, a B.S. in Vocal Music Education, an M.A. in Music Education, a Doctorate in Practical Theology, and is licensed and ordained by the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies. Jaran Family Ministries has ministered at family camps, conferences, seminars, prayer and worship gatherings, and women’s retreats. Sorenson has been involved in local church leadership, beginning in worship ministry leadership at age eleven, and serving the last 30+ years with her husband, Kevan. She taught in the public school as a music educator for nearly 10 years, in private music instruction for 21+ years, and as a home educator of their six children for 16+ years. The Sorensons have three biological children, Jaran (20), twins Jessa and Jadan (17), and three adopted children from Guatemala, Jenna (18), Jocilyn (16), and Josiah (13), all of whom have ministered with the family in various areas of giftings over the past 16 years. Tammy has also served in children’s and family ministry leadership 16 years, and House of Prayer ministry seven years. She is a pianist, singer, psalmist, songwriter, teacher, and writer. The vision for the arts express’d is presented in her books, No More Orphans!, The Journey of Adoption, and I Am a Good Idea!