From the Publisher: Suffused with longing, this rueful, passionate memoir about an adopted woman’s search for her birth parents explores themes of race and family.

Catherine McKinley was one of only a few thousand African American and bi-racial children adopted by white couples in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Raised in a small, white New England town, she had a persistent longing for the more diverse community that would better understand and encompass her. In an era shaped by the rhetoric of Black Power and Black Pride, McKinley’s coming of age entailed her own detailed investigation into her birth history, a search complicated by the terms of a closed adoption that denied her all knowledge of the circumstances of her birth.

The Book of Sarahs traces McKinley’s own time of revelations: after a five-year period marked by dead ends and disappointments, she finds her birth mother and a half-sister named Sarah, the name that was originally given to her. When she locates her birth father and meets several of his eleven other children she begins to see the whole mosaic of her parentage—African American, WASP, Jewish, Native American—and then is confronted with a final revelation that threatens to destabilize all she has uncovered.

At the center of the narrative is McKinley’s angry passion for her two mothers and her quest for self-acceptance in a world in which she seems to herself to be always outside the bounds of social legitimacy. In telling of her struggles both to fit into and to defy social conventions, McKinley challenges us to rethink our own preconceptions about race, identity, kinship, loyalty, and love.

---

About the Author: Catherine E. McKinley is co-editor of Afrekete. She lives in New York City.

From the Back Cover: Craig Juntunen appeared to have it all. He sold his company at the age of 40, and set out to live the good life of retirement. But he soon began to feel something was lacking. When a friend told him the story of adopting two girls from Haiti, Craig’s emptiness gave way to a sense of adventure. On a trip to the desperate Third World nation, a country wracked by poverty, corruption and kidnappings, his self-serving lifestyle began a very profound transformation. At an orphanage outside of Port-Au-Prince Craig encountered Espie, Amelec and Quinn. Even after decades of table-pounding declarations he would never have children, at 51 Craig became a dad. This inspirational story of an unexpected journey and personal transformation will say many things to different people. But for all it delivers a powerful reminder of our responsibility to reach out and be there for kids.

---

About the Author: Craig Juntunen’s life experience can be broken into three distinct eras ...

In his early life he was involved heavily in athletics, playing quarterback for a total of 14 seasons. He finished his athletic career as a quarterback in the Canadian Football League. He was elected into the State of Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame and the University of Idaho Hall of Fame.

His experience as a leader on the football field led to his developing into an entrepreneur. He successfully built and sold a company with a very successful track record and temporarily retired.

His experience as a quarterback and as an entrepreneur blended together to form philanthropic passions. He has been involved in many charitable giving efforts, and until recently his most notable achievement was launching the Chances for Children foundation.

In May 2010 he started the Both Ends Burning Campaign, a project to change the landscape of international adoption. He and his wife Kathi live in Scottsdale, Arizona with their three children, Amelec, Espie and Quinn. Craig is a recognized expert on international adoption and a frequently sought out public speaker.

From the Back Cover: Family-making in America is in a state of flux—the ways people compose their families is changing, including those who choose to adopt. Broken Links, Enduring Ties is a groundbreaking comparative investigation of transnational and interracial adoptions in America. Linda Seligmann uncovers the impact of these adoptions over the last twenty years on the ideologies and cultural assumptions that Americans hold about families and how they are constituted. Seligmann explores whether or not new kinds of families and communities are emerging as a result of these adoptions, providing a compelling narrative on how adoptive families thrive and struggle to create lasting ties.

Seligmann observed and interviewed numerous adoptive parents and children, non-adoptive families, religious figures, teachers and administrators, and adoption brokers. The book uncovers that adoption—once wholly stigmatized—is now often embraced either as a romanticized mission of rescue or, conversely, as simply one among multiple ways to make a family.

---

About the Author: Linda Seligmann is Professor of Anthropology and Director of Graduate Programs in Anthropology at George Mason University. Her books include Between Reform and Revolution: Political Struggles in the Peruvian Andes, 1969-1991 (1995) and Women Traders in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Mediating Identities, Marketing Wares (2001), and her analyses have appeared in The Washington Post and on National Public Radio.

From the Back Cover: Brown Babies, Pink Parents is a real world guide for White parents who are raising Black children. Author Amy Ford is the adoptive mother of three African American daughters, with first-hand experience of the challenges of transracial parenting. She addresses a multitude of concerns including basic skin and hair cair, racial socialization, accepting white privilege, and ways to celebrate the diversity of your family.

---

About the Author: Amy Ford lives in Austin, TX, with her partner, Kim, and their three daughters. As a foster parent since 2002, Amy has parented numerous children, most of whom are African American. She now serves as the Director of Parenting Across Color, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and supporting the white parents of black children.

From the Dust Jacket: In Burning Fence, acclaimed novelist Craig Lesley turns his keen eye toward two difficult fathers and an alcohol-damaged Indian foster child, Craig’s own “son,” Wade.

Abandoned by his shell-shocked father, Rudell, Craig grew up with his stepfather, Vern, a tough, controlling railroader. When events turned nasty, Craig, his mother, and his baby sister fled on the night train and arrived at an Indian reservation where his mother found work. Decades later, convinced he would be a better father than Rudell or Vern, Craig takes in the troubled Wade.

But desperation over Wade’s violent acts motivates Craig to seek out Rudell in remote Monument, Oregon. Craig hopes his father, a reclusive coyote trapper and poacher, will help raise his disturbed grandson. There Craig meets his colorful half- brother, Ormand, a would-be East Coast hit man, now “born again.”

Skillfully capturing the rural humor, rugged characters, and hardscrabble life of Eastern Oregon, Burning Fence presents a searing reflection on fatherhood and offers remarkable insight into the landscape of the Western heart.

---

About the Author: Craig Lesley received the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for The Sky Fisherman, Winterkill, and Talking Leaves. He teaches at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

---

By the Same Author: Storm Riders (2000, Picador USA).

From the Back Cover: Jean Nelson-Erichsen and Heino Erichsen are the founders and directors of Los Niños International Adoption Center. They were already the parents of three biological sons when they adopted twin daughters in South America in 1973. Then, as volunteers for Adoptive Families of America (formerly OURS), and adoption agencies in Minnesota, they publicized many Latin American adoption sources. They paved the way for thousands of U.S. couples and singles to adopt. Through their guidance, research, and writing, the Erichsens went on to help find adoptive parents for orphaned and abandoned children in other countries as well. They conduct continuous research into sources of adoptable children worldwide. In 1983, the whole family traveled to Colombia where they met a nine-year-old boy whom they adopted. The Erichsens travel to Asia, Europe, and Latin America in order to develop and maintain new adoption programs. Since licensure in 1982, Los Niños International has placed over 1,000 orphaned, abandoned and relinquished children in loving American families.

---

About the Author: Jean Nelson-Erichsen and Heino R. Erichsen are the only persons in the United States with Master’s Degrees in Human Development specializing in international adoption sources and procedures. They wrote the definitive work on the subject, Gamines: How to Adopt from Latin America in 1981, which was followed by How to Adopt From Central and South America, How to Adopt From Asia, Europe and the South Pacific, and the Los Niños International Family Cookbook. Jean Nelson-Erichsen is also the author of children’s media: Copito, the Christmas Chihuahua, May Davenport Publishers, and International Children, a bulletin board set and resource guide published by Trend Enterprises.

She also writes and edits the LNI Handbook as well as their monthly publication, Los Niños News, and is the supervisor of social work, overseeing pre- and post-adoptive studies, and directs adoption planning as well as the Taiwan and Texan adoption programs. She recently produced a 45 minute film, How to Adopt. This warm, uplifting video answers all the basic questions about American and foreign adoptions.

Heino R. Erichsen is the Executive Director. He directs the Latin American, Chinese and Russian adoption programs with a local bilingual staff. LNI cooperates with international adoption agencies in countries where these entities exist. In others, the agency cooperates with the national welfare system authorities.

---

By the Same Author: Gamines: How to Adopt From Latin America(1981, Dillon Press); How to Adopt From Asia, Europe and the South Pacific (with Gay R Hallberg; 1983); How to Adopt From Central and South America (1989); How to Adopt Internationally: A Guide for Agency-Directed and Independent Adoption (1992); Butterflies in the Wind: The Truth About Latin American Adoptions (2004, Authors Choice Press); Inside the Adoption Agency: Understanding Intercountry Adoption in the Era of the Hague Convention (2007, iUniverse); and My Portable Life: Reluctant Runaway Finds Families for Thousands of Children (2009, iUniverse), among others.

From the Back Cover: The book chronicles not only the adoption of their three children abroad, but follows each of their children (including their biological son) into young adulthood. It vividly depicts their difficulties in raising teenagers in a cross-cultural, transracial home, and also exposes the frightening conditions facing today’s kids in our public schools, including gang issues, drop outs, and culture clashes. It provides valuable insights to parents and non-parents as well. This book was a real eye-opener and awakened me to the harsh realities our teens must face in what I would have thought were quality schools. Although told from a parent’s point of view, they very effectively explored the emotions, indeed the angst, of their teenage children.

—Jo-Anne Weaver, adoptive parent of a Chinese daughter placed by Los Niños International, and Senior Acquisitions Editor of Education and Developmental Psychology for Harcourt Brace

---

About the Author: Jean Nelson-Erichsen, LSW-MA and Heino R. Erichsen, MA, founded Los Niños International Adoption Center in 1981. Since then, the agency has placed over 2,600 children. The Erichsens were already the parents of three biological sons when they adopted twin daughters in Latin America in 1973. They returned in 1983 to adopt a nine-year-old boy. They paved the way for thousands of prospective parents with their guidance, research, and written information. Their book, How to Adopt Internationally (Mesa Publishing House), is considered the “bible” on the subject. The Erichsens continue to travel to Asian, Eastern European, and Latin American countries in order to develop or to maintain adoption programs.

Jean is the Supervisor of Social Work at the agency. She is also the author of numerous articles in books and magazines on adoption.

Heino is the Director of Development and Public Policy.

Rosana N. Erichsen, BBA, one of the children in this book, is now the Executive Director.

---

By the Same Author: Gamines: How to Adopt From Latin America(1981, Dillon Press); How to Adopt From Asia, Europe and the South Pacific (with Gay R Hallberg; 1983, Los Niños); How to Adopt From Central and South America (1989, Los Niños); Butterflies in the Wind: Spanish/Indian Children with White Parents (1992, Los Niños); How to Adopt Internationally: A Guide for Agency-Directed and Independent Adoption (1992, Los Niños); Inside the Adoption Agency: Understanding Intercountry Adoption in the Era of the Hague Convention (2007, iUniverse); and My Portable Life: Reluctant Runaway Finds Families for Thousands of Children (2009, iUniverse), among others.

What happens when your child doesn’t speak your native language? How do you maintain cultural traditions while living outside your native country? And how can you raise a child with two cultures without fracturing his/her identity? From our house to your house—to the White House—more and more mothers are facing questions such as these. Whether through intercultural marriage, international adoption or peripatetic lifestyles, families these days are increasingly multicultural. In this collection, women around the world, such as Xujun Eberlein, Violet Garcia-Mendoza, Rose Kent, Sefi Atta, Christine Holhbaum, Saffia Farr, and others, ponder the unique joys and challenges of raising children across two or more cultures. About the Author: Suzanne Kamata’s short work has appeared in over 100 publications. She is the author of a novel, Losing Kei, and a picture book, Playing for Papa, both of which concern bicultural families. She is also the editor of two previous anthologies—The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan and Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, and is currently fiction editor of Literary Mama. Born and raised in Michigan and most recently from South Carolina, she now lives in rural Japan with her Japanese husband and bicultural twins.

For parents who adopt children trans-racially, one of the challenges they face is understanding how to care for their new child’s curly hair. The advice new parents get on caring for curly hair varies widely and usually leads to more confusion than answers. In this helpful little book, parents will find a wealth of information about caring for curly hair, clearing the fog and helping them see exactly how to best care for their new child’s hair. The practical advice given in this book is not based on abstract theory or traditional myths about haircare but is derived from years of practical, hands-on experience of caring for curly hair so that it thrives.

From the Publisher: This timely study analyzes the issue of adoptions that cross racial and national lines, and assesses their success and appropriateness. The book’s centerpiece is a comprehensive long-term study of the transracial adoption conducted by Rita Simon and Howard Altstein, the result of twenty years of research and analysis. The authors discuss the case often made against transracial adoption and explain the laws that govern these adoptions.

---

About the Author: Rita J. Simon is University Professor at The American University’s School of Public Affairs. She is the coauthor, with Howard Altstein, of four other books on transracial adoption, including Adoption, Race, and Identity (1992) and Intercountry Adoption (1990).

Howard Altstein has cowritten four books on transracial adoption. He was formerly dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland.

Marygold S. Melli is the Voss-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin College of Law. She has contributed to a number of books, including Parenthood: The Legal Significance of Motherhood and Fatherhood in a Changing Society.

---

By the Same Author: Transracial Adoption (1977, John Wiley & Sons); Transracial Adoption: A Follow-Up (1981, Lexington Books); Transracial Adoptees and Their Families: A Study of Identity and Commitment (1987, Praeger); Adoption, Race, and Identity: From Infancy Through Adolescence (1992, Praeger); and Adoption Across Borders: Serving the Children in Transracial and Intercountry Adoptions (2000, Rowman & Littlefield), among others.

The Challenge of Permanency Planning in a Multicultural Society hits home the importance of cultural knowledge, sensitivity, and skill for putting permanency and stability into the lives of at-risk children. By reading this book, you will gain a better appreciation for the role of culture in a family’s life and learn to translate this understanding into attitudes and practical skills that will enable you to work more effectively with families. You will learn how to prevent unnecessary out-of-home placements, how to judge when the time is right for reunification of parents and children, and how to know when adoption is the best choice for a child’s long-term well-being. The Challenge of Permanency Planning in a Multicultural Society addresses areas of special concern that are often overlooked in research studies and case work itself. These include the roles of fathers, issues related to adolescent sexual orientation, and the experiences of minors left on their own. From this book’s intervention strategies, model case plans, and successful programs, you will reduce the likelihood of hurting children and families through ill-informed plans and actions. You will also learn about: kinship care; the Indian Child Welfare Act; incorporating both parents’ viewpoints into permanency planning; recruiting adoptive parents and the MultiEthnic Placement Act; the continuum of child welfare services; and minors who have immigrated to the U.S. without parents or relatives. If you let The Challenge of Permanency Planning in a Multicultural Society help you, you’ll strengthen your ability to conduct culturally sensitive assessments of families and design highly effective case plans. Child welfare workers, supervisors, trainers, and program managers will find that this resource book can help them improve their clinical skill and program development, facilitate family preservation and support, and always keep the child’s interests at the forefront.

Radical obedience. Experiencing God’s presence. Overcoming fear. Listening for God’s voice. Unconditional love. A new world view. These lessons are a sampling of how God used an adoption journey to change the author as a person at her very core. Everyone is waiting and hoping for something, and the waiting game is one no one likes to play. Come along as she relives these lessons and experience what God may have to say to you as well.

From the Back Cover: Families come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some are big. Some are small. And some don’t even look like each other. But no matter what your family looks like, one thing is certain: the most important part of being a forever family is feeling loved.

In Child of Many Colors, experienced author Shannon Guymon has compiled an inspiring collection of stories depicting the drama, excitement, and pangs of anxiety that accompany building a family. Drawing on her own experiences as an adoptive mother, Shannon presents the true-to-life realities of transracial adoption. And while we all know that transracial adoption has unique challenges, it also offers special opportunities and a joy you won’t find anywhere else.

Whether you’re just beginning the adoption journey or you’re already a seasoned traveler, this book is the perfect companion to help you find your destination—a home filled with laughter and love. Enjoy the smiles, the tears, and all the hugs and kisses that come with belonging to a forever family—no matter what that family looks like.

---

About the Author: Shannon Guymon lives in Utah with her husband and six children. In what little free time she can find, she enjoys being in the mountains, gardening, traveling, spending time with her family, and, of course, writing.

In addition to Child of Many Colors, Shannon is the author of Never Letting Go of Hope, A Trusting Heart, Justifiable Means, Forever Friends, Soul Searching, Makeover, and Taking Chances.

---

By the Same Author: Never Letting Go of Hope (2001, Bonneville Books); Justifiable Means (2003, Bonneville Books); and Sophie’s Christmas Wish (2013), among others.

Do you know that...
• Skin care products are seasonal? This means different products for the summer and winter months.
• People with darker skin can develop skin cancer?
• The curlier the hair, the less often it needs to be washed?
Child of Mine: Caring for the Skin and Hair of Your Adopted Child is an essential resource for parents, and caregivers whose children don’t share the same medical history or background. Dr. Brooke Jackson, a board-certified dermatologist and adoptive mother, teaches parents and their kids how to achieve and maintain healthy skin and hair. Many adoptive parents may be unfamiliar with conditions related to their child’s skin and hair as it may be different from their own. In an easy-to-read format, this invaluable reference offers a complete guide to skin and hair issues. Dr. Jackson explains the signs, symptoms, causes, and treatments for a variety of different skin and hair conditions, and pinpoints some red flags where consulting a dermatologist may be prudent.

I stared at the letter and picture as the tears fell. I hadn’t heard from Vickie in almost twenty years. And then tonight, of all nights, I had received such a letter! I held my breath as I sensed God’s presence all around me. Adoption, was that what God had in mind for us? Ten years of infertility brought Debbi and Phil Migit to a crisis of faith. Child of Promise is the true account of one couple’s journey from barrenness to the blessing of transracial adoption. There is a message that goes beyond infertility and adoption; it will touch any believer and bring them to a better understanding of God’s ultimate faithfulness. Walk with Debbi and Phil as they remain faithful to God and finally receive their “child of promise.”

About the problems and rewards of interracial adoption. The prevailing attitudes toward adoption in general in America and the problems encountered in dealing with agencies and adoption procedures. The book discusses four case studies of American Indian, Korean, and Negro children concerning their interracial adoption.

The story of how “Project Vietnam Orphan” grew after the showing of a television report by Julian Pettifer. The author tells of the first attempts to help, the encounters with red-tape, the first workers sent to Saigon and of the way support was found in the idea of doing “God’s work.”

From the Back Cover: Sometimes the losses of childhood can be recovered only in the flight of the dragonfly.

Native American children have long been subject to removal from their homes for placement in residential schools and foster or adoptive homes. The governments of both the United States and Canada, having reduced Native nations to the legal status of dependent children, historically have asserted a surrogate parentalism over Native children themselves.

Children of the Dragonfly is the first anthology to document this struggle for cultural survival on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. Invoking the dragonfly spirit of Zuni legend who helps children restore a way of life that has been taken from them, it explores the breadth of the conflict about Native childhood. Included are works of contemporary. authors Sherman Alexie, Joy Harjo, Luci Iapahonso, and others; classic writers Zitkala-Sa and E. Pauline Johnson; and contributions from twenty important new writers as well.

This book shows that Native children—as well as their families and descendants—are both victims and victors in the crucial struggle for cultural and personal survival. Like the dragonfly of lore, this volume can lead us all toward a better understanding of adopted children everywhere.

---

About the Author: Robert Bensen is Director of Writing and Professor of English at Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York, where he chairs the Department of English and Theatre Arts. He teaches courses in creative writing; American Indian, Caribbean, and British literature; and a seminar on American Indian law and literature. He is the editor of One People’s Grief: Recent West Indian Literature and literary coeditor (with Maurice Kenny) of Iroquois Voices, Iroquois Visions. He has published critical essays exploring the conflict of cultures in the works of many American Indian and West Indian authors, including Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, Derek Walcott, Earl Lovelace, and Jean Rhys. Bensen is a poet as well and was awarded the Robert Penn Warren Award for Poetry in 1993 and a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship in 1996. His poems have appeared in the United States, Caribbean, and Great Britain, in such journals as Paris Review, Partisan Review, Ploughshares, Caribbean Writer, Poetry Wales, Slow Dancer, Tamaqua, and Akwe:kon. He is an invited non-Native member of the WordCraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. His wife, Mary Lynn, is Associate Reference Librarian at SUNY-Oneonta. They and their daughter Annalee live in Oneonta, New York.

From the Preface: The racism that characterizes American society has had tragic effects upon Black children. It has given the Black child a history, a situation, and a set of problems that are qualitatively different from those of the white child. In a narrower context, American racism has placed Black children in an especially disadvantaged position in relation to American institutions, including the institution of child welfare. As for the child welfare system itself, societal racism has had extensive and intensive effects upon the organization, distribution, and delivery of services to Black children. Moreover, specific aspects of the welfare system complement this racism and serve as barriers to change. This book traces the past and present interplay of systemic and institutional racism and describes the resulting disadvantages to Black children in relation to child welfare. It is intended for all who care about the well-being of these children.

Children, Tribes, and States offers a multi-layered critique of Indian child welfare law. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) provides the governing law and reflects the prevailing federal policy. Three decades after its enactment, the law remains controversial. On one hand, Atwood agrees that many state courts still resist ICWA’s jurisdictional provisions because of distrust of tribes and tribal courts. These jurisdictional battles not only deter the courts from addressing the merits of the children’s cases but also prolong the children’s stay in temporary care. On the other hand, she argues that when a state court decides the placement of an Indian child, it must take into account the child’s individual needs. The book explores alternative placements that may conform to the culture of a child’s tribe, such as customary adoption and kinship guardianships. Atwood proposes reforms that aim to protect the children’s well-being while fitting with contemporary understandings of tribal sovereignty and the promotion of cultural identity.

From the Publisher: Transracial adoption has recently become a hotly contested subject of contemporary and critical concern, with scholars across the disciplines working to unravel its complex implications. In Claiming Others, Mark C. Jerng traces the practice of adoption to the early nineteenth century, revealing its surprising centrality to American literature, law, and social thought.

Jerng considers how adoption makes us rethink the parent-child bond as central to issues of race and nationality, showing the ways adoption also speaks to broader questions about our history and identity. He analyzes adoption through a diverse set of texts, including the 1851 Massachusetts statute that established adoption as we understand it today, early adoption manuals, the New York Times blog “Relative Choices,” and the work of John Tanner, Lydia Maria Child, William Faulkner, Charles Chesnutt, Chang-rae Lee, and David Henry Hwang.

Imaginative and social practices of transracial adoption have shaped major controversies, Jerng argues, from Native American removal to slavery to cold war expansionism in the twentieth century and the contemporary global market in children. As Claiming Others makes clear, understanding adoption is crucial not just to understanding the history between races in the United States, but also the meaning of emancipation and the role of family in nationhood.

---

About the Author: Mark C. Jerng is assistant professor of English at the University of California, Davis.

From the Dust Jacket: Born in London to a Nigerian princess, Precious Williams saw her life change radically in its first months. Her mother, deciding she couldn’t raise a child, placed an ad for foster care in Nursery World. A response soon came from a woman in rural Sussex, England, and Precious was handed off, a three-month-old bundle in a basket.

Precious’s new foster mother, Nanny, was nearly sixty, and white. She had felt an affinity for “colored” children ever since reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin in school, and prided herself on being “color blind.” But she might have been shortsighted about the difficulties her black daughter would encounter. At her all-white school, Precious was taunted and ostracized, and Nanny struggled to understand her troubles. Precious’s birth mother visited occasionally, providing glimpses of another world, but as Precious grew older, her distant mother became critical of a daughter who had become “too white.”

Retreating into her imagination, Precious forged her own identity. She emerged from the disillusionment and self-destructiveness of her teen years resolved never to let circumstance, class, or color determine her future. In Color, Blind, Precious Williams tells her extraordinary story, weaving together the complexities of identity, motherhood, and race.

---

About the Author: Precious Williams has been a contributing editor at the Mail on Sunday’s Night & Day magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Elle in Britain. Her personal essays and celebrity interviews have also appeared in the Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times, Glamour, Marie Claire, and the New York Post. Precious studied English at Oxford University and journalism at the London College of Printing, and she is currently working toward a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of London. She lives in London.

Accounts of the experience of cross-cultural adoption, by adoptees. These accounts are introduced by Sarah Armstrong, who introduces the project, the issues around cross-cultural adoption, themes arising through the first person accounts and provides statistics on the scale of cross-cultural adoption. In the Introduction, Ms. Armstrong states: “The aim of the project was to draw together the experiences of both Australian-born transracial adoptees and intercountry adoptees ... Of the nine Australian-born adoptees, there were those of Aboriginal, Chinese, Maori, African, and Spanish descent. The countries of origin for the 18 intercountry adoptees were Vietnam, Bangladesh, Fiji, New Zealand (Maori), Burundi, Korea, Colombia, Sri Lanka, India and Canada (North American Indian). The writing of The Colour of Difference has been about discovery and openness and not about blame. The adoptees who gave their stories to us so generously and honestly, with all their various experiences of adoption, wanted the book to be a positive and true reflection of their lives in Australia. Some of them, as you will read, had experienced unkindness or abuse in their adoptive families. The majority had been treated with love and real efforts had been made to incorporate them and their culture into the adoptive family. The participants, as a group, said that they were ‘just trying to be honest’ in writing their stories, not trying to blame their adoptive families, who were generally perceived to be ‘doing their best’...The participants of this book are keenly aware of how their lives might have been. They bear the burden of gratefulness, often to parents who would be appalled to think that their children feel such an emotion. In the public eye, this kind of adoption was, and perhaps still is, a ‘good thing’ to have done, an altruistic gesture. The New South Wales Law Reform Commission, in their Report 81: Review of the Adoption of Children Act 1965 (NSW) state: Approaching intercountry adoption as a form of aid carries with it a danger of placing on the child an implied burden of being grateful for having been ‘saved.’ This can lead to a situation in which the child may feel that his gratitude can never equal what has been done for him and the debt becomes impossible to repay.”

Are you prepared to adopt and parent transracially? Transracial adoption can be a daunting and exhilarating journey. At times you feel incredibly isolated and lost. However, with this conversational and practical guide in hand, you will be able to adopt with confidence and parent with education and enthusiasm. Whether you are new to adoption, a seasoned adoptive parent, or you are an adoptee, birth parent, or adoption professional, Come Rain or Come Shine will enhance your understanding and appreciation for transracial adoption.

This book contains nine important factors to consider when adopting a child of another race. A chapter on recognizing the symptoms of childhood depression is also included. Consider This...is based upon my experiences as an African-American woman who was adopted by a Caucasian family, and who began life in a small, rural community 31 years ago.

Multiracial families (families in which one member of the family has a different racial heritage than the other member(s) of the family) comprise a rapidly growing U.S. population. Counseling Multiracial Families addresses this population that has been neglected in the counseling literature. In the first chapter, readers are given a comprehensive history of racial mixing in the United States special needs and issues of multiracial families as well as special strengths of multiracial families are addressed. Challenges of interracially married couples are explored as are the social and cultural issues related to parenting and child rearing of multiracial children in today’s society. The results of biracial identity development research are translated into counseling practice with the children, adolescents, and adults in multiracial families.

Looking at examples from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and Central America, this edited collection explores the cross-cultural contexts that affect adoption today and provides valuable analysis of global adoption practices. Adoption is currently subject to a great deal of media scrutiny. High-profile cases of international adoption via the Internet and other unofficial routes, have brought about legislation which regulates the exchange of children between countries. However a lack of understanding of cultural difference in adoption and child-rearing practices still exists between the West and other non-Western cultures, and the assumptions behind Western childcare policy are rarely examined. Looking at examples from Africa, Oceania, Asia and Central America, this edited collection explores the cross-cultural contexts that affect adoption today and provides valuable analysis of global adoption practices.

Cry of the Outcast is the incredible true story about a tiny premature African baby boy who was abandoned and left to die but because of love, survives and thrives with his forever family. With insurmountable difficulty, his new family struggles with the realities of life in Africa as they try to secure his future as a son and brother. The reader will gain deep insight into the challenges of Africa and a practical vision of how each one of us can make a difference.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, aboriginal children were taken from their parents and placed into non-aboriginal adoptive homes throughout Canada. A Culture of Dishonour is about how one woman is coping after being involved in the “ ’60s Scoop.”

From the Dust Jacket: Dark Rice is Maria Eitz’s story of the making of her family, one written with such loving intimacy that those who read it will feel they, too, have lived it. Herself a victim of war, Ms. Eitz has made a home in California for other victims of war. Jonathan and Nicholas, offspring of racially mixed parents, were growing up in one of the many Vietnamese orphanages. In becoming their mother, Maria Eitz overcame the bureaucracy, red tape and prejudices of 1) adopting as a single parent; 2) adopting across international lines; 3) adopting children of mixed racial background.

The story unfolds from the first time Maria sees her Jonathan in a snapshot. When he finally arrives in this country in 1972, he is suffering from malnutrition and speaks no English. He lives in fear of bombing raids, being moved again and losing his new mother. Gradually he changes to a loved and loving person, a wholly delightful and vigorous boy. DARK RICE is a joyful and poignant celebration of unloved children transplanted into love. It is a buoyant and unforgettable story for everyone—children, teenagers and adults.

---

About the Author: On Easter Sunday, March 30, 1975, Maria Eitz organized Orphans Airlift, an umbrella organization to get children out of South Vietnam before the North Vietnamese takeover. It was she who waited for the children-filled planes in San Francisco, including the plane which President and Mrs. Ford met. As executive director of Orphans Airlift, she, along with many volunteers, housed the children until they could reach their new homes.

She has long been familiar with the procedures of bringing orphans into this country: For the last four years she handled weekly arrivals from Rosemary Taylor’s orphanages.

Since completing Dark Rice, she has adopted two more Vietnamese orphans, Moki and Aiyana. Aiyana was one of the infants airlifted to the U.S. on the same plane which President Ford met.

Maria Eitz is a graduate of Marquette University, Milwaukee, and now teaches theology and conducts retreats in the San Francisco area.

Fred L. Weinman brings an impressive background to this book. He has done commercial illustrations for many years—he has a fondness for architecture—and has illustrated four children’s books. His line drawings in Dark Rice match well the loving touch of the author.