From the Dust Jacket: Maybe you know my kid, writes Mary Cahill Fowler. He’s the one who says the first thing that comes to mind. He’s the youngster who can’t remember a simple request. When he scrapes his knee, he screams so loud and long that the neighbors think his mother is beating him. He’s the kid in school with ants in his pants who could do the work if he really tried. Or so his parents have been told over and over again.

Mary Fowler’s son David is afflicted with a syndrome known as Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which affects between three and six percent of all children. In one-third to two-thirds of these cases, the symptoms are carried into adulthood. While there are different degrees of severity, there is a common theme: inattentive, impulsive, restless behavior.

Scientists believe that ADHD is genetically transmitted in most cases. While there is no cure, the symptoms of ADHD are very treatable.

In candid and dramatic fashion, Mary Cahill Fowler tells the story of her son, David. She describes how at first his behavior devastated the family and, finally, how Mary and her husband discovered their child was not willfully misbehaving, but had a problem that could be treated and solved.

But this book does much more than tell David’s story. It serves as a guide to parents, helping them recognize the symptoms of ADHD and understand what is affecting their child. It also describes treatment from birth through early adulthood. Because ADHD is not the same for all children, the author has included the experiences of others to explain the differences.

In addition, Maybe You Know My Kid provides the insights of practitioners who are nationally recognized for their work in ADHD, so that the reader gets a clear, clinical explanation of how to deal with the problem.

Often moving, Maybe You Know My Kid is filled with revelatory information that could improve the lives of millions of families and children.

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About the Author: Mary Cahill Fowler, a former teacher, currently heads an ADHD parent support group and gives numerous lectures on the subject to school faculties and parents. She lives in Fair Haven, New Jersey.

From the Back Cover: For the first time the inside story of the meteoric career of the most controversial senator of our time is told by his intimate associate. Roy Cohn was at Senator Joseph McCarthy’s side throughout the turbulent years of the search for communists hiding within our government structures, and during the bitter weeks of the Army-McCarthy hearings—weeks that destroyed a man who might have become president. No American of the last 100 years has been subjected to the vilification that was heaped upon Joseph McCarthy—and yet to millions he remains a symbol of patriotism and courage and forcefulness that has been too long missing from our leaders. History must pass the final judgment on Senator McCarthy, and his role in the fight for preservation of a free society in a free world but Roy Cohn offers here the first intimate and honest portrait of Joe McCarthy, the man and the crusader.

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About the Author: Roy Cohn is a native New Yorker, the son of accomplished parents—State Supreme Court Justice Albert Cohn and Dora Marcus Cohn. He was educated at Fieldston Lower School and Horace Mann School for Boys, and, at the age of sixteen, entered Columbia University, where he earned both a college degree and a law school degree within three and a half years.

He began to work as a clerk in the United States District Attorney’s office, and later became a prosecutor. He was a key figure in the courtroom prosecution of the Rosenberg spy trial and the second-string Communist party leaders. He was then called to Washington, where he served a brief stint as special assistant to the Attorney General late in 1953. At the age of twenty-six he was named counsel for the Senate Investigating Committee under Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Within a year he had become a hero to millions, who regarded him as a brilliant young Communist fighter, and a devil to millions, who placed him alongside McCarthy as a destroyer of civil liberties.

After the Army-McCarthy hearings described in this book, Mr. Cohn returned to New York. He has been and is a key figure in some of the most renowned legal cases of our time. He is now counsel to one of New York’s most active law firms, Saxe, Bacon & Bolan, and also a very active business life. He has taught law at New York Law School, is president of the American Jewish League Against Communism, is a Regent of St. Francis College, and is founder of the Roy M. Cohn Charitable Foundation.

Mr. Cohn made powerful enemies during his years fighting subversion. One of them, Robert Mergenthau, became the Federal prosecutor in New York, and brought about three criminal indictments against Mr. Cohn. But only one old Morgenthau charge still remains on the books. Once again taking his case to the people, Cohn was unanimously found innocent by the juries on all counts in the other two indictments. He made courtroom history by taking over his own successful defense.

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Compiler’s Note: Joseph McCarthy married his secretary, Jeannie Kerr. Later the couple adopted a five-week-old girl from the New York Foundling Home. While this biography focuses more on the infamous Senator’s political career, it does talk about McCarthy’s personal life, as well.

This is a remarkable true story. This author, a single woman, resigns from her nursing career and adopts a severely abused child with uncontrolled behaviors. She finalizes the complicated adoption. The child and mother adopt each other as it becomes a match made in hell. They learn in this process they need to change their response with each different behavior. Many things seem backwards as the mother pushes forward. Nothing is normal. She’s changing now too. Everything she’s ever learned is now all backwards to her. Thus the name of this book, Me Other The, which is The Other Me backwards. The behaviors are specific personalities that later are diagnosed as Disassociative Identity Disorder, and therapy begins. The story takes you up and down the mother-daughter roller coaster ride with inspirational twists and turns. Physical evidence proves court intervention and specialized counseling is a very important tool.

From the Back Cover: Meditations for Adoptive Parents serves as a trusted confidant as you take up the holy experience of parenting through adoption. This heartfelt collection celebrates adoption as an act of grace mirroring God’s own redeeming love for us, of family adoption as a sacred experience and a model of the redemption offered by God through Jesus.

Author Vernell Klassen Miller offers thirty days of encouragement and wisdom for new families through devotionals, poetry, Scripture, prayers, and readings. Brimming with real-life examples from the author’s own journey as the parent of four adopted children, this warm volume offers what every Christian adoptive family can use—a pause for spiritual nourishment amid the ongoing journey of raising children.

This spiritually and theologically rich book aims not only to help adoptive parents with day-to-day living but to sustain hope in their high calling. Topics include bonding, the stages in relinquishment and adoption, dealing with unsolicited advice and questions, and stories of adoption in the Bible.

From the Back Cover (of Of Braces and Blessings): Meet the Overcomers!

Discover the charming, often amusing story of a family that moved from being overcome by hardship—to being overcomers through the grace of Jesus Christ.

Here is a warm, personal account of a couple whose three children faced serious health problems: one had cerebral palsy, and two suffered from hyperactivity.

Read how the family learned to lean on God to help them overcome and to open their hearts to three more children with special health problems.

Read the Wheelers’ story and be encouraged, entertained and inspired!

From the Back Cover: The baby is screaming again. My baby. I hoist her off the narrow hotel bed—again—and try to cradle her as I rock my torso back and forth in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair.

This baby does not cradle. She doesn’t know how to cuddle, to be soothed in anyone’s arms. She howls and arches away, squirms and flops, a sixteen-pound fish out of water. I’m not used to holding babies, and she’s not used to be being held, but when I try to put her down, she wails. My arms feel chafed, raw, and my wrists ache from the hours of straining to hang on to her.

Huge tears pool in her eyes. These tears could break my heart. These screams could break my eardrums.

After years as a temporary college instructor with no real home—her family and longtime friends scattered—Nancy McCabe yearned to settle down, establish a place she could call home, and rear a child there. A tough academic job market led her to accept a position at a church-connected college in the deep South, a move that felt like an uneasy return to the conservative environment of her childhood that she thought she had left behind. McCabe had many reservations about rearing a child alone in this climate, but the desire to become a mother would not go away.

Meeting Sophie tells the story of McCabe adopting a Chinese daughter and the many obstacles she faced during the adoption and adjustment process as she renegotiated her role within her family and fought difficulties in her job. Especially poignant is her struggle to bond with a sick, grieving baby while in a foreign country during political unrest—followed, upon her return to the U.S., by a devastating loss and a Career crisis.

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About the Author: Nancy McCabe’s creative nonfiction has won a Pushcart Prize and been listed in Best American Essays twice. She is the author of After the Flashlight Man: A Memoir of Awakening and the Assistant Professor of Writing and Director of Writing Programs at the University of Pittsburgh in Bradford.

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By the Same Author: Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge: A Journey to My Daughter’s Birthplace in China (2011).

Since her adoption in China in 1998 at one year old, Melanie has turned life on its head for middle-aged Terry & Julie Garlock. She has brightened their lives and helped them refocus on things that are genuinely important, like teaching a child to make alligator shadows with her fingers against a sunlit wall. This book begins with Melanie’s adoption, and Dad describes the trials and rewards of fatherhood at 50 through a collection of short stories. The brief stories were written to encourage and support others involved in their own adoption journey. If you are impatiently waiting for your own adoption to be completed, this book is for you. If you wonder about a parent bonding with an adopted child, this book is for you. If you have a spouse or relatives or friends who are somewhat reluctant about adoption, this book is for you and them. If you wonder whether an adopted child can be loved as much as a biological child, this book is for you. If you are like me and most other Dads, a Neanderthal when it comes to articulating how you feel about your child, this book is especially for you. But the truth is, ultimately this book is for Melanie. Someday when she can read, she will read not only the words but between the lines to discover she could not possibly be more loved if she were our biological child.

From the Back Cover:  Foster Parent Offers Insight Into Troubled System 

Mary Callahan never planned on writing a book about her experiences as a foster parent. She had only one goal as a parent—to help the children in her care. But as she learned their stories, it became painfully clear that the child welfare system had no sincere regard for the welfare of children. Callahan realized the only way to truly help the children was to tell their stories.

Written from the unique perspective of a foster parent, Memoirs of a Baby Stealer chronicles Callahan’s experiences with five foster children, shedding light on the inadequacies of the Child Welfare System in this country. As the author explains, “They are taking kids from places that aren’t that bad, putting them in places that aren’t that good, and completely ignoring the bond that exists between parent and child.”

Share Callahan’s struggle as she:

• Deals with the power politics of the child welfare system

• Provides loving care to the children in her charge

• Uses her extensive experience as a parent and a nurse to discover problems and solutions in each child’s development

• Defends herself against unsubstantiated child abuse charges

• Overcomes fear of retribution by the Department of Human Services

• Becomes a powerful advocate for the rights of foster children and their parents

This book is essential; reading for parents, foster parents, and professionals involved in children’s lives. The author hopes it will also inspire decision and policy makers throughout the country.

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About the Author: Mary Callahan is an emergency room nurse, cardiopulmonary nurse educator, and foster parent. She is the author of Fighting for Tony, as well as numerous articles on parenting, nursing, and foster care. The mother of two children, Callahan resides in Maine.

From the Dust Jacket: At the age of sixty Grace Nies Fletcher was suddenly left alone—her beloved husband Jock passed away and her only son Rick got married. But circumstances that might have plunged different women into panic or self-pity instead became a challenge to Mrs. Fletcher.

At that time, in 1960, she pasted her own nine-clause Declaration of Independence on her mirror-a declaration which began, “From now on, I solemnly swear to 1) Refuse to be bored,” and continued, “to 2) Do the things I like NOW!” Whereupon she embarked on an adventure trip to the Orient with her friend Polly. Ten years and four global trips later sometimes accompanied, sometimes solitary—Merry Widow is Mrs. Fletcher’s spirited and humorous account of those gallant journeys.

An interview with the Dalai Lama, the author’s experiences with her adopted Chinese daughters in Hong Kong, and a straightforward eyewitness report on Vietnam are only a few of the highlights of this book. There is a marvelous portrait of Maki, the charming Japanese lady, born into the Royal Family, who married the American Merrell Vories. Mrs. Fletcher also tells of her visits to Hawaii, Fiji, Bangkok, Nepal and Egypt—her cruise on a barge down the Nile fulfilled a childhood wish.

But Merry Widow is more than the record of an adventurous woman’s journeys—the pervading scent of cloves on the island of Penang reminds her of the pine smell of Maine, where she summered as a child, and throughout Merry Widow the past is a vital part of the present. There is a delightful reprise of her childhood in a Methodist parsonage, of her marriage to Jock and, in particular, the halcyon year they spent together in Majorca, living on a shoestring; and her accounts of the birth and boyhood of her son Rick and of her husband’s and her last fling when they went off to Ibiza with Jock under sentence of death are particularly moving.

As Merry Widow makes clear, for the author “time is not measured by the tick of the clock but in heartbeats.” Inevitably a vivid portrait of Mrs. Fletcher herself emerges—modest and unassuming, yet undaunted and eternally curious about and deeply concerned with the lives of people of all extractions and cultures.

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About the Author: Grace Nies Fletcher, born in Townsend, Massachusetts, was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Boston University and later studied at Columbia and Ohio Weslyan. A preacher’s kid—the family of German and Irish extraction—Mrs. Fletcher married an Englishman. During their married life they spent a year in London, another year on Majorca and Ibiza in the Balerics, and varying lengths of time in Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Maine, and Texas. Mrs. Fletcher is the author of many books, including In My Father’s House and The Fabulous Flemings of Kathmandu. When not abroad, she makes her home in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

A road trip that will test every bit of one couple’s courage and resolve to the limit...Francesca and Rick don’t give up easily—which is just as well when they decide to adopt a child internationally after being turned down in the UK. They can have children naturally but believe passionately in adoption and their desire to do some good in the world sees them go to Mexico. With no idea where to start, they plunge straight in and find themselves in a country that seems stuck in the 1970s. Faced with a series of nail-biting unexpected twists and turns, this is a personal touching human drama and a heartbreaking account of one couple’s trials and tribulations. The story will hook you in and keep you reading as their journey brings them into contact with a cast of characters straight out of Hollywood casting, from a demented but loving mother to a lawyer offering babies for sale in Starbucks. Francesca’s writing is inspired by authors Chris Cleave, Niccolo Ammaniti and Isabel Allende. Mexican Takeaway will appeal to women, mothers and especially those who are interested in adoption. It will also reach readers who enjoy true stories of impossible adventures in exotic destinations. Francesca and Rick’s story has already had high press visibility with an article in the Daily Mail and The Sun, and Francesca appeared on BBC and ITV during National Adoption Week.

From the Dust Jacket: Within days of his election, George Bush met with his Mexican counterpart, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The urgent meeting, held even before the two men had been sworn in as their countries’ respective chief executives, reflected the leaders’ anxiety that Mexico’s simmering problems could soon make it the country that Americans will have to worry about most.

Inspired by Oscar Lewis’s The Children of Sanchez, a classic study of Mexican life published more than a quarter century ago, The Mexicans brings to life the people whom Americans will have to deal with if they are to avoid the onrushing disasters that both nations face. Meet the fire-breather, the movie star, the peasant, the comic, the cop, the expatriate, the mind reader, the feminist, the homosexual, and even one of the original Children of Sanchez, a sometime smuggler who brings Lewis’s classic saga up to date.

The Mexicans is above all a collection of stories—vivid, real-life stories about America’s unknown neighbor to the south. These are not the people encountered by the four million Americans who vacation in the escapist atmosphere of Mexico’s splendid beaches or magnificent archaeological ruins each year. These are the real Mexicans. The Mexicans is a guided tour through the mean streets and dusty byways of this most mysterious neighbor. It is a look into Mexico’s very soul.

For those who want the statistics, The Mexicans provides the worrisome figures. Mexico is the number-one source of illegal drugs and illegal immigrant workers to the United States. It has been the number-one source of vital oil imports. After Canada and Japan, Mexico buys more U.S. goods than any nation. But The Mexicans is not about numbers. It is about people, people who are as different from Americans as a chile pepper is from an apple pie.

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About the Author: Patrick Oster grew up in the Chicago area, where he practiced law before taking up journalism as a career in 1973. He spent ten years in Washington, D.C., from the end of Watergate to the beginning of the second Regan administration. He was Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. He covered the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon, specializing in foreign affairs most of this time. He traveled to about fifty countries in the process.

In 1984, he became the Mexico City bureau chief for the Knight Ridder newspaper chain. He has won awards from the Overseas Press Club and the Inter-American Press Foundation for his coverage of Mexico and Latin America. He and his wife and son now live in Belgium. This is his first book.

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Compiler’s Note: The author integrates the story of the adoption of the couple’s son in Mexico into the narrative.

Ok... I’m a foster carer who doesn’t want this placement. The department of Social Services know just how to apply pressure... Oh yes... they get one very good, very friendly, very experienced social worker that I happen to have so much respect for, to make the call, knowing, just knowing that I will possibly surrender and agree to share our home with a child that, to be honest, was the last child in the world that I felt capable of caring for... Felt capable of feeling anything for... Felt capable of... anything to do with her. Mmmm, sometimes I’m so bloody shallow you see. I don’t want people to look at me as I go about my business. I don’t want strangers giving me pitying looks or hurrying past pretending they haven’t looked in my pram. I don’t want to give up any of the precious time I spend with my birth children and husband. I want my life to stay just as it is. Happy and contented. Oh the lessons I was about to learn.

From the Dust Jacket: The shocking story of the unraveling of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen’s relationship can only be told by someone who lived amidst the intimate details of their daily life together. Friend and confident to Mia, nanny to her four youngest children, Kristi Groteke is that someone.

For a dozen years, the two stars seemed to live a sophisticated Manhattan fairy tale. Why did this famous couple parade the shocking end of their affair before a stunned and fascinated public? To their fans, the degree to which they sacrificed their privacy was almost as appalling as the revelations of Woody’s affair with one of Mia’s daughters and the allegations of his sexual abuse of another.

What went wrong? Mia & Woody is the first true insider’s account of how their unusual love/work partnership, a coupling that lasted a dozen years and involved thirteen notable movies, imploded. It is also the story of a remarkable family threatened from within, fighting to hold their life together. How this disparate group of children and their mother worked and lived, laughed and cried, is candidly revealed. So too is the drama of a trusting woman betrayed by her lover and her daughter.

Written from first-hand knowledge and with sympathetic understanding, Mia & Woody is the moving tale of a love gone terribly wrong. Kristi Groteke shares with the reader Mia’s fight to retain her dignity in the glare of public humiliation; her struggle to protect her children; and her courage in the face of events that assaulted evervthing she believed in.

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About the Author: Before signing on as a nanny to Mia Farrow’s children, Kristi Groteke attended Manhattan College on a track scholarship—earning national ranking as a middle distance runner—and graduated with a B.S. in education. Ms. Groteke has also studied acting and physical therapy. She lives in Connecticut.

Marjorie Rosen, the author of Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American Dream and co-author of the comic murder mystery, What Nigel Knew, is a journalist and screenwriter. She is currently a senior writer at People magazine. She lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly: Less a biography than a collection of clippings from various publications, Hollywood film/TV journalists Rubin and Taylor follow the actress from her birth in 1945 through the present. Readers might wish for more about Mia Farrow’s parents, director-author John Farrow and screen actress Maureen O’Sullivan (“Jane” in the early Tarzan movies), but the text remains devoted to its subject. Her career is traced from her first acting stint at age 19 to her role in the TV series Peyton Place, the plum lead in Rosemary’s Baby, the disastrous celluloid version of The Great Gatsby and her successes in Woody Allen’s films. There are reminders of the actress’s failed relationships with Sinatra and Andre Previn and her liaison with Allen, as well as critiques of her films. Here the authors go overboard with praise, even higher than their fulsome paeans to Mia Farrow the madonna, unrivaled in her devotion to her children.

From the Publisher: Every foster parent knows how hard, yet rewarding, it can be to care for a child with a difficult past and an uncertain future. Christie Erwin has been a mom, in the middle, for countless children over nearly two decades. In this poignant and insightful book, she honestly shares the reality of making yourself vulnerable to the pain and indescribable delight of giving your heart away to a child. If you have ever considered foster parenting and just aren’t sure you have what it takes, let Christie’s inspiring, faith-filled story assure you that there is One that can and will equip you with all you need.

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About the Author: Christie Erwin has cared for over forty children in the past fifteen years, in both the public and private sector. She is currently the co-chairman of the Pulaski County Adoption Coalition and the coordinator of the Pulaski County Heart Gallery as well as a founding member of The C.A.L.L. (Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime). Christie and her husband, Jeff, live in Little Rock, AR, with their five children.

Blending lyrical vision with down to earth, hard-headed, practical common sense, the author addresses what is surely one of the most critical issues of our day: teenage sexuality. Pleading with parents to both understand and smile at the normal “craziness” of adolescence, he also asks them to take a good hard look at how much the world has changed during the last ten years, with MTV and AIDS and the exponential rise of teenage pregnancy, so that it’s become much more difficult to be a teenager’s parent, especially when the teenager is adopted.

From the Back Cover: A Miracle Every Day takes an illuminating and intimate look at flourishing single-mother families. Single motherhood and the children of single mothers have been the subject of overwhelmingly negative statistical analysis. But, asks Marita Golden, where are the studies that analyze the strengths of single mothers, the positive adaptive skills learned by their children, the support systems that help these families work? In A Miracle Every Day Golden, once a single mother herself, and several other single mothers and their family members share their success stories with great honesty and insight. Golden identifies the coping characteristics these families have in common and organizes them into guiding themes, making A Miracle Every Day a book that single mothers and their support networks can turn to for wisdom, comfort, and inspiration.

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About the Author: Marita Golden is the author of four novels, most recently The Edge of Heaven (Doubleday, 1997). She has also written Saving Our Sons: Raising Black Children in a Turbulent World; edited Wild Women Don’t Wear No Blues: Black Women Writers on Men, Love and Sex; and co-edited Skin Deep: Black Women and White Women Write About Race—all of which have been published by Doubleday. Executive Director of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, Marita Golden is also on the faculty of the M.F.A. Graduate Creative Writing Program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She lives in Mitchellville, Maryland, with her husband and son.

From the Back Cover: Have you ever wondered about adopting a child from overseas? Is adoption part of your family—or would you like it to be? Travel with Elle and Jonathan through their true adoption journey —through the steps of the adoption process in an expedition that pulls you, draws you, presses at you, and at the end, has the power to ultimately complete you.

The people and the events are real. The emotions are incredibly powerful. And the story’s page-turning significance will grip your soul. Come with us; let the story capture your heart. Travel with us until the moments of waiting fall into one: The powerful uniting of parent and child. And feel the joy of coming home.

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About the Author: Elle Conner, the mother of two teenage boys and Allie (now nine), lives in mid-Michigan balancing working part-time with being there for her kids. A voracious reader, Elle also loves to write and is now working on books Two and Three of this series. Elle and her husband love to spend time with their kids; traveling, camping, and attending their children’s numerous events.

Erin Brown Conroy, a mom of 13 children (eight adopted internationally), has been an instructor to children and counselor to families for over 30 years. As author of three parenting books including 20 Secrets to Success with Your Child, Erin slips away on evenings and weekends for educational and motivational speaking at conferences and workshops and teaches as a part-time university professor in leadership, writing and research, and health and wellness. Erin and her husband, Shawn, together enjoy homeschooling and raising their children in Michigan.

From the Back Cover: In the spring of 1983, a North American couple who were hoping to adopt a child internationally received word that if they acted quickly, they could become the parents of a boy in an orphanage in Honduras. Layers of red tape dissolved as the American Embassy there smoothed the way for the adoption. Within a few weeks, Margaret Ward and Thomas de Witt were the parents of a toddler they named Nelson—an adorable boy whose prior life seemed as mysterious as the fact that government officials in two countries had inexplicably expedited his adoption.

In Missing Mila, Finding Family, Margaret Ward tells the poignant and compelling story of this international adoption and the astonishing revelations that emerged when Nelson’s birth family finally relocated him in 1997. After recounting their early years together, during which she and Tom welcomed the birth of a second son, Derek, and created a family with both boys, Ward vividly recalls the upheaval that occurred when members of Nelson’s birth family contacted them and sought a reunion with the boy they knew as Roberto. She describes how their sense of family expanded to include Nelson’s Central American relatives, who helped her piece together the lives of her son’s birth parents and their clandestine activities as guerrillas in El Salvador’s civil war. In particular, Ward develops an internal dialogue with Nelson’s deceased mother Mila, an elusive figure whose life and motivations she tries to understand.

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About the Author: Professor of German Emerita, Margaret E. Ward, taught at Wellesley College from 1971 to 2010. A prize in her name is awarded each year to an outstanding senior major in Women’s and Gender Studies in recognition of her contribution to the establishment of that department. Ward has held NEH and Fulbright fellowships and has published on Bertolt Brecht, post-1945 political drama, and women’s biography, including a book on Fanny Lewald, a nineteenth-century novelist and advocate of women’s education. She divides her time between Harrisville, New Hampshire, and Bonita Springs, Florida.

Do you have trouble understanding where some people are coming from? Do you find yourself wondering why people do what they do? Nancy Alcorn spent eight years working for the state at a correctional facility for juvenile delinquent girls and investigating child abuse cases, giving her direct encounters with programs that were not producing permanent results of changed lives. Determined to establish a program in which lives would truly be transformed, Nancy started Mercy Ministries of America. In Mission of Mercy Alcorn challenges readers to consider why people behave the way they do, sharing the practical principles that have made Mercy Ministries a success at life transformation. Illustrated by the moving, inspiring testimonies of real women, she demonstrates how we can move from a place of judgment to compassion that leads to action.

The Modern Encyclopedia of Child Care is an illustrated, comprehensive guide to all aspects of infant and child care, including advice on childhood diseases, problems of behavior. child raising, and the maintaining of good health. Topics are arranged alphabetically, so Adoption would addressed be in Volume 1 (Ab-Bi).

Sharon Simon’s memoir is the story of one woman’s fierce determination to become a mother. Her journey, full of setbacks and emotionally devastating pitfalls, ultimately led her to true love and pure joy. Mom at Last will inspire women who find themselves on that sometimes difficult journey to motherhood, giving hope that motherhood is possible and encouraging women to never give up on their dreams.

Twenty-one years ago, Kathy Roberson and her husband made what might’ve been the most difficult decision of their lives: they adopted a child with special needs who was, in adoption lingo, “hard to place.” One-year-old Katie came with labels: African American, general development delays, mild cerebral palsy. And thus begins the Robersons’ journey into new territory, both for them as parents and their other two young children as siblings. Kathy Roberson’s collection of poems relates her family’s challenging adventure, beginning with the day they buckled Katie into her car seat for the first time, moving through the following two decades of bringing her into adulthood. Each poem mines the seemingly little things in life to unearth fundamental truths that will resonate for anyone who has encountered the frustrations and joys of caring for a loved one. Meet the Robersons and their beloved Katie, who leave a lasting impression of the things that matter most. As Cathy Smith Bowers, author of five collections of poetry and recent poet laureate of North Carolina puts it, “Roberson teaches us not only how to see these often difficult and painful truths, but also how to turn them into art that comforts, heals, and resurrects us.”

A poignant story of an older couple who adopt a special-needs child as a baby, and of the moments of joy and sadness that accompany the raising of the boy.

All the joys and challenges of having kids are addressed in this TimesFile collection, which features many of the most popular personal stories about parenthood from the Lives page of The New York Times Magazine. These thoughtful, entertaining pieces range in subject from pregnancy, adoption, and surrogacy to coping, helicopter-parenting and college. The moms and dads who share their experiences here include acclaimed writers such as Matt Bai, Firoozeh Dumas, Ben Greenman, Samantha Hunt, John Moe, Laura Munson, Anna Solomon and Danielle Trussoni. Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, “My New Kentucky Baby” by Joshua Gamson, from the May 20, 2011 edition (re: surrogacy and gay adoption); and “The Origin of Jonah” by Melanie Braverman, from the September 6, 2010 edition (re: answering the author’s 5-year-old son’s questions about his birth mother).

From the Back Cover: Veronica Brunner has written a painfully accurate account of the blessing of adoption, as well as the trials of the care of foster children, the bureaucracies that deal with these children, and the compassion needed to make all of these things work for the best interest of children. Veronica has included an area at the end of each chapter outlining her sources of strength and courage which help focus the reader on the real issues and problems she and her husband faced in adopting three children. She has highlighted the many problems our society faces when trying to make several bureaucracies work efficiently together to help solve the multifaceted issues of dysfunctional families that are unable to raise their children. She gives us hope, information, and most of all a look into the lives of a very committed, compassionate couple who have supported and loved three children to adulthood.

—Charlene S. Rinne, R.N., Ph.D., Program Manager, Advocates for Children CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate)

Would that all abused, neglected and troubled kids could be rescued by devoted couples like the Brunners. Here Veronica tells why they were willing to dedicate their caring and love, time and worldly goods to rescue three extraordinarily needy children. More importantly to those who may wish to follow their example, she tells where she found information, the help and the strength she needed to cope day by day and how it all worked out.

—Charline Mann, Past President, NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill)

This story is a beautiful one, and one that should be of great value to anyone who deals with adoption, therapists, social workers, teachers, and particularly parents who adopt or provide care for children who cannot stay in their own homes. Although Mary, Tommy and Chris are central to the story, and much can be learned from their experiences, their tragedies and their triumphs, it is really a story of parents.

—Claire Purcell, Ph.D., Psychology

From the Dust Jacket: It was the summer of 1985; people all across the country were fascinated and disturbed by the July 9th Benson murders: two pipe bombs planted in the family car exploded and killed multi-millionairess Margaret Benson and her adopted son, Scott—an up-and-coming tennis star about to make his debut at the U.S. Open. Margaret’s beautiful Boston socialite daughter, Carol Lynn, was severely burned, but her other son, Steven, who had left the car only seconds before, was unscathed. Little more than a year later, he barely escaped the death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison for trying to murder the other three.

Weekly magazines, grocery store tabloids, local and national news programs, and some of the most prestigious daily newspapers covered the Florida trial in all its seamy and sordid detail. Here was the “heir to the Benson & Hedges fortune” (estimated at $400 million) and here was the story: Steven had caused his mother to fear for her life; he had embezzled more than $2 million from her; upon learning that he was to be disinherited from his portion of the $400 million, he cold-bloodedly plotted the demise of his entire family; and, finally, he simply stood and watched the sole survivor, Carol Lynn, writhe and burn in agony, all the while staring blankly without coming to her rescue, and at one point turning his back on her screams.

Here was a story of greed and folly, obsession and fear. Here were the facts that pointed to clear-cut guilt—facts that spelled out a life sentence at the very least for the spoiled and demented Steven Benson.

The only trouble was, almost none of these “facts” were true...

Michael Mewshaw thought he knew and accepted the story, just as the rest of the country had. Instead, he discovered that the truth of the Benson family murders is far more shocking than anyone has ever realized.

Through his exhaustive interviews and analysis of many never-before-disclosed court documents—affidavits, trial transcripts, depositions—his painstaking comparisons of hundreds of hours of conflicting statements, and his unmatched access to the defense and the judge during the course of the trial, prize-winning investigative writer Mewshaw has unearthed a horrifying tale indeed: but the horror lies in its revelation of a grave abuse of the judicial process that flies in the face of every American’s constitutional rights.

Money to Burn is the first complete and objective report on these murders. It is a story that has waited two years to be told, a towering exposé that is as haunting as it is hard hitting. Money to Burn is a spellbinding true-crime drama.

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About the Author: Born in Washington, D.C., Michael Mewshaw graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.A. and earned a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Virginia. The author of seven critically acclaimed novels and two prize-winning books of investigative nonfiction, he has received a Fulbright Fellowship, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Mewshaw has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Playboy, the Nation, the New Statesman, and other publications in the United States and Europe. He lives in Rome with his wife and two sons.

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By the Same Author: Life For Death: A True Story of Crime and Punishment (1980, Doubleday); True Crime (1991, Poseidon Press); and If You Could See Me Now (2006, Unbridled Books).

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Compiler’s Note: The paperback edition promotes the fact that it contains “astonishing new information not published in the original hardcover edition.”

Once in a lifetime, you may be fortunate enough to meet a child who will change your view of the world forever. Josiah was that kind of a child. Born with severe cerebral palsy and numerous health challenges, he was blessed with an infectious joy and the gift of encouraging others. His faith in God and his passion to serve far surpassed his limited abilities. To know him was to be inspired. His life was cut short by his frailty, but his legacy remains. About the Author: Renee Peacock has an extensive background in facing challenges as a medical assistant, a developmental disabilities technician, a clinical research coordinator for pharmaceutical trials, a foster/adopt mom, and a navy wife. In addition to raising their two adult children, she and her husband of thirty years have adopted four children (two of whom have special needs). The Peacock family have lived all over the world and currently reside in Grand Junction, Colorado. In addition to writing, weightlifting, and yoga, Renee enjoys dancing hula, playing in the dirt, and singing on the worship team at Fellowship Church.

The Moratorium of Anya explores the struggle for redemption faced by an adoptive family following forced separation from their 11-year-old daughter in Ukraine. When a young American couple embarks on an intercountry adoption, fate unfolds in the discovery of Anastasia and Katerina, and engulfs the new family in a gripping journey. Under the collapsed Soviet Union, Anastasia’s Russian birth forces new legal precedence to establish her citizenship. Meanwhile, the orphanage reveals buried secrets into Anya and Katia’s past. The girls grapple with the illegal sale of their baby siblings to Israel; and, under quarantine, their own lives become endangered, as a deadly outbreak of measles takes lives and threatens the orphanage. Finally, in an effort to spare the girls, an adoption decree is issued. Unable to secure the needed Russian birth certificate for Anya, the family is forced to return to America without her. In the care of the Schadowsky’s Ukrainian advocate, Natasha, Anya battles with emotions of abandonment after the loss of her birth family, and now her only remaining sister, Katia, has gone to the United States with their new mother and father. A determined mother returns to Ukraine after six months of political tyranny between the three governments. In a harrowing and true saga of sacrifice and redemption, Shelley Schadowsky resists arrest, and ultimately secures Anya’s citizenship as guns are leveled.

From the Back Cover: Why do adopted teenagers feel the way they do? How much of this is due to their being adopted or to the changes that puberty brings? How can parents help their children to confront and deal with the turbulence of their teenage years, their identity crises and their adoption-related problems? This in-depth practical guide, written by an adoptive parent for adoptive parents, explores the problems that adopted teenagers (up to 18 years old) are likely to confront and provides suggestions for helpful solutions and achievable communication methods. Although the guide focuses primarily on children adopted from abroad, the practical advice offered can be helpful in relationships with any adopted young person. More Adoption Conversations considers:

• The complex feelings that adopted teenagers can have

• Adoption-related problems that surface during puberty

• Why adopted teenagers feel and behave the way they do

• Talking about painful events and acknowledging difference

• How to help an adopted young person deal with their grief and anger

• Establishing meaningful dialogues and using communication techniques effectively

This invaluable guide, brimming with advice and ideas, will help parents discuss the known—or unknown—aspects of their adopted teenager’s history and be well-equipped to communicate difficult issues. Examples of dialogue and suggested questions and answers about a range of subjects surrounding adoption add to the usefulness of More Adoption Conversations. Quotations from young people about their thoughts, feelings and frustrations help bring the text to life.

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About the Author: Renée Wolfs is a mother of three children adopted from China. She received her Master’s degree in Communication in 1987 and works as a freelance journalist and author. She is also an experienced coach in communication skills and works for a Dutch child helpline. She has written several articles and columns in Dutch adoption magazines.

Her personal involvement in adoption, coupled with her communication expertise and a knowledge of developmental psychology, led Renée to question what exactly children should be told about their adoption story, and at what age. Two books resulted. They were first published in the Netherlands in 2004 and 2008, titled World Child: Talking to your adopted child and The Adoption Dialogue: Conversation techniques for adoptive families with teenagers, respectively.

The English language edition of World Child, titled Adoption Conversations, was published in the UK by BAAF in 2008. This in-depth practical guide explores the questions adopted children are likely to ask, up to age 12, with suggestions for helpful explanations and answers.

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By the Same Author: Adoption Conversations: How, When and What to Tell (2008) and Healing for Adults Who Grew Up in Adoption or Foster Care: Positive Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Challenges (2015, Jessica Kingsley Publishers).