I am frequently asked about good books about adoption. This page lists the books and films I have read or viewed that have informed or influenced me in some way. These books range from academic to popular press and are heavily biased towards the adoptee perspective. What you will not find here (for the most part) are adoptive parent memoirs or “how to adopt” books. If adoptive parents have authored some of these books listed here, then I have found something more substantive in their pages than their personal “adoption journey.”
This is an admittedly biased list of recommendations. There are many more adoption books out there than what I’ve listed here. If you are an adoptee and are looking for resources for your own journey, these books and films could be a good place to begin. I don’t agree with all of the positions and opinions expressed in these books, but if they are listed here then they all have given me a lot of fodder for further exploration.
Please contact me at harlowmonkey at gmail dot com if you have suggestions for other resources or would like me to review your book. However I won’t promise a good review or a recommendation, and I will provide my honest, critical review so be forewarned.
Happy reading!
ADOPTION BOOKS – GENERAL
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A Sealed & Secret Kinship: Policies & Practices in American Adoption by Judith Schachter Modell
- Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives edited by E. Wayne Carp
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Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution Is Transforming America by Adam Pertman
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Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption by E. Wayne Carp
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Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States by Ellen Herman
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Like Our Very Own: Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood, 1851-1950 by Julie Berebitsky
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Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption by Barbara Melosh
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Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge
ADOPTION BOOKS – UNDERSTANDING ADOPTION ISSUES
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Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief by Pauline Boss
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Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by David M. Brodzinsky
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Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens by Debbie Riley
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Coming Home to Self: The Adopted Child Grows Up by Nancy Newton Verrier
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Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss by Claudia Jewett Jarratt
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Journey Of The Adopted Self: A Quest For Wholeness by Betty Jean Lifton
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Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience by Betty Jean Lifton
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Our Own: Adopting and Parenting the Older Child by Trish Maskew
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Shared Fate: A Theory and Method of Adoptive Relationships by H. David Kirk
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The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child by Nancy Verrier
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The Road to Evergreen: Adoption, Attachment Therapy, and the Promise of Family by Rachael Stryker
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Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge
ADOPTION BOOKS – TRANSRACIAL
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Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging by Eleana J. Kim
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Adoptive Families in a Diverse Society edited by Katarina Wegar
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Babies Without Borders: Adoption and Migration across the Americas by Karen Dubinsky
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Birth Is More Than Once: The Inner World of Adopted Korean Children by Hei Sook Wilkinson
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Birthmarks: Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America by Sandra Patton
- Children of the Storm: Black Children and American Child Welfare by Andrew Billingsley
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Choosing Ethnicity, Negotiating Race: Korean Adoptees in America by Mia Tuan and Jiannbin Lee Shiao
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Somebody’s Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transnational Adoption by Laura Briggs
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The Kinning of Foreigners: Transnational Adoption in a Global Perspective by Signe Howell
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Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship by Sara Dorow
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Transracial Adoption and Foster Care: Practice Issues for Professionals by Joseph Crumbley
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West Meets East: Americans Adopt Chinese Children by Richard Tessler
ADOPTEE/FOSTEREE MEMOIRS & BOOKS
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Blending In: Crisscrossing the Lines of Race, Religion, Family, and Adoption by Barbara Ann Gowan
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Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison – Deborah Jiang Stein
- From Morning Calm to Midnight Sun by Sunny Jo
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Fugitive Visions: An Adoptee’s Return to Korea by Jane Jeong Trenka
- Here: A Visual History of Adopted Koreans in Minnesota by Kim Jackson and Heewon Lee
- : In Search of Belonging: Reflections by Transracially Adopted People Edited by Perlita Harris
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Oceans Apart: A Voyage of International Adoption by Mary Mustard Reed
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Parenting As Adoptees, Edited by Adam Chau and Kevin Vollmers
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Secret Daughter: A Mixed-Race Daughter and the Mother Who Gave Her Away by June Cross
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Songs of My Families: A Thirty-Seven-Year Odyssey from Korea to America and Back by Kelly Fern
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The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts by Catherine E. McKinley
- The Unforgotten War: Dust of the Streets by Thomas Park Clement
ADOPTION BOOKS – ANTHOLOGIES
Search and Reunion
Understanding Birth Parent Perspectives
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Dreaming a World: Korean Birth Mothers Tell Their Stories edited by Sangsoon Han
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Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother’s Memoir by Janet Mason Ellerby
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Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts
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Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey by Karen Salyer McElmurray
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Waiting to Forget: A Motherhood Lost and Found by Margaret Moorman
Raising Children of Color
Children’s Books
Documentary Films
- Adopt Me, Michael Jordan
- Adopted
- Approved for Adoption
- Calcutta Calling
- China’s Lost Girls
- Crossing Chasms
- Daughter From Danang
- First Person Plural
- Found in China
- In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee
- Las Hijas
- Long Wait for Home
- Made In Korea: A One-way-ticket Seoul-Amsterdam
- Off and Running
- Operation Babylift
- Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption in America
- Passing Through
- PRECIOUS CARGO
- Resilience
- Struggle For Identity
- The Triumvirate
OTHER BOOKS BY TRAS
- Bryan Thao Worra: On The Other Side of the Eye
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Jennifer Kwon Dobbs: Paper Pavilion (White Pine Press Poetry Prize)