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Recommended Reading

 

Featured Book






Groundbreaking Interventions: working with Traumatized Children, Teens and Families in Foster Care and Adoption
Jeanette Yoffe

Jeanette Yoffe, M.A., M.F.T., is the Director and Founder of Celia Center, the non-profit she named after her first mother, Celia. It serves as a support center that meets the critical needs of all those connected by Foster Care and Adoption and all those who serve the community. She is an adoption and foster care psychotherapist. Yoffe’s desire to become a therapist with a special focus on adopted and foster care issues derived from her own experience of being adopted and moving through the foster care system.

She has been in the field for over 20 years and has worked as a psychotherapist, foster care social worker, clinical director, trainer for Los Angeles County Child & Family Services and the Department of Mental Health for parents, social workers and therapists on adoption & foster care challenges, parenting, impact of pre-adoption trauma, grief/loss, open adoption, and provides support to adult adoptees searching for long lost family members, as well as assists in reunion and family reunification. She is a Court Appointed Reunification Expert for Los Angeles Superior Court in cases involving children at risk for separation
 



Please peruse our recommended reading list. Many of these books can be found in libraries nationwide. To purchase these titles, the following specialized sources are recommended:

Amazon.com: A portion of books purchased through Amazon will benefit the AAC.

Just click on one of our links below.

Tapestry Books: A mail order/online bookstore specializing in adoption titles.

While the AAC believes that all the books listed below will be helpful to individuals seeking to learn more about the adoption experience, the views and opinions expressed in the books are those of the authors alone. 
 

  Second Choice: Growing Up Adopted
Robert Anderson
Adoption Reunion Survival Guide: Preparing Yourself for the Search, Reunion, and Beyond
Julie Bailey and Lynn Giddens
Lethal Secrets: The Psychology of Donor Insemination - Problems and Solutions
Annette Baran, Reuben Pannor and Arthur D. Sorosky
Not Your Normal Family: A Single Asperger Woman's Adoption of Two Down's Boys
Fiona Barrington
Confessions of a Lost Mother
Elisa M. Barton
Late Discoveries: An Adoptee's Quest for Truth
Susan Bennett
Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self 
David M.Brodzinsky, Marshall D. Schlechter, Robin Marantz Henig
Swimming Up the Sun: A Memoir of Adoption 
Nicole J. Burton
Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation and Ballot Initiative 58 
E. Wayne Carp
Growing Up Is Hard to Do When They Won't Tell You Who You Are
Joann Chace
Birth Fathers and Their Adoption Experience
Gary Clapton
Jessica Lost: A Story of Birth, Adoption & The Meaning of Motherhood
Bunny Crumpacker
Adopting After Infertility: Messages from Practice, Research and Personal Experience (Paper Back)
Adopting After Infertility: Messages from Practice, Research and Personal Experience (Kindle)

Marilyn Crawshaw & Rachel Balen
Fifty Years in 13 Days a Mother/Daughter Reuinon
Katie DeCosse & Jackie Maher
My Brave Little Man
Terry Allen Degner
Adopted Reality: A Memoir
Laura Dennis
Finding a Forever Family: A News Anchor's Notebook on Domestic
Adoption Within the Foster Care System

Christine Devine
The Language of Flowers: A Novel
Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Outer Search/Inner Journey: An Orphan and Adoptee's Quest
Peter F. Dodds
A Love Child's Journey
CKay Duncan
Making Room in Our Hearts: Keeping Family Ties Through Open Adoption 
Micky Duxbury
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
 Sherrie Eldridge
Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir
Janet Mason Ellerby
   Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women's Memoir
 Janet Mason Ellerby
  The Search: A Memoir of an Adopted Woman
 Titia Ellis
The Sighing of Rose-Breasted Cockatoos: The Search for the Sunlit Clearing
Robert Ensign

Everything In It's Own Time
Rebecca Patton Falco
Any Skeletons in the Closet?
Ann E Fedeli
The Girls Who Went Away 
 Ann Fessler
 Blind In One Eye: A Story About Seeing the Possibilities
 David R. Ford
May the Circle Be Unbroken: An Intimate Journey into the Heart of Adoption
 Lynn C. Franklin
Somebody's Child: Stories About Adoption
Bruce Gillespie and Lynne Van Luven
Silent Moms: The Secret Grief of Birth Mothers
Theresa Gonzalez
(ordered through authors website) 
Blending In: Crisscrossing the Lines of Race, Religion, Family, and Adoption
Barbara Ann Gowan
Adoption Constellation
Michael Grand
Not Remembered Never Forgotten
Robert Hafetz
Without A Map: A Memoir
Meridith Hall
An Unlit Path
Deborah L. Hannah
Mother Country: A Memoir
Jeremy Harding
Good Girls Don't
Patty Hawn
Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA  
Richard Hill
The Mistress's Daughter
A. M. Homes
In A Country Of Mothers 
A. M. Homes
Finding Me In a Paper Bag: Searching For Both Sides Now 
Sally Howard
Two Hearts: An Adoptee's Journey Through Grief to Gratitude
Linda Hoye

Healing the Hole in A Heart: One Birthmother's Journey into the Adoption Triangle

Nancy Mac Isaac

Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib
Jaiya John
 Perspectives on a Grafted Tree: Thoughts for Those Touched
 
Patricia Irwin Johnston
Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their Stories 
Merry Bloch Jones
    He Waited for Me
 Patricia Kamradt
Adoption: Uncharted Waters 
 David Kirschner, Ph.D.
The English American: A Novel
Alison Larkin
Listen to Me: Writing Life Into Meaning
Lynn Lauber
Found: A Memoir
Jennifer Lauck
Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
Jennifer Lauck
Still Waters
Jennifer Lauck
Show Me the Way
Jennifer Lauck
Once They Hear My Name: Korean Adoptees and Their Journeys Toward Identity
Ellen Lee
Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience
Betty Jean Lifton
 Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness
 
Betty Jean Lifton
Nothing Good Ever Happens to Me: An Adoption Love Story
Caroline Lindsay
Empty Arms: A Novel
Erika Liodice
  Out of the Shadows: Stories of Adoption & Reunion
Linda Back MacKay
Single Mothers By Choice
Jane Mattes 
Becoming Patrick
Patrick McMahon    
Looking for Lost Bird: A Jewish Woman Discovers Her Navajo Roots
Yvette Melanson
Raising Adopted Children, Revised Edition: Practical Reassuring Advice for Every Adoptive Parent
Lois Ruskai Melina
The Open Adoption Expeience - A Complete Guide for Adoptive and Birth Families
Lois Ruskai Melina
The Mysteries of Eva Miller Revealed
Eva Miller
Waiting to Forget: A Motherhood Lost and Found
Margaret Moorman
To Prison With Love
Sandy Musser
Reading Adoption: Family and Difference in Fiction and Drama
 Marianne Novy




You Don't Know How Luck You Are
An Adoptee's Journey Through the American Adoption Experience
Ruby Owens
The Harris Narratives: An Introspective Study of a Transracial Adoptee
Susan Harris O'Connor
      The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated
Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao
 
  A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, A Mysterious Past
and How He Found a Place Called Home

Steve J Pemberton
 Adoption Nation (Revised and Updated
Adam Pertman
 In Her Mother's Shoes
Felicity Price
The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption
Barbara Bisantz Raymond
The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar
Unregulated Adoption Industry

Mirah Riben
Adoption Encounter: Hurt, Transition, Healing
Mary J Rillera
Adoption Reunion: Ecstasy or Agony?
Evelyn Burns Robinson
Adoption and Loss: The Hidden Grief
Evelyn Burns Robinson
Adoption and Recovery: Solving the Mystery of Reunion
Evelyn Burns Robinson
Adoption Separation: Then and Now
Evelyn Burns Robinson
Touched By Adoption
Nancy A. Robinson

Saying Goodbye to a Baby: Birthparents Guide to Loss and Grief in Adoption (Saying Goodbye to a Baby Vol. 1
Patricia Roles

Saying Goodbye to a Baby: A Counselor's Guide to Birthparent Loss and Grief in Adoption:  (Saying Goodbye to a Baby Vol. 2)

Patricia Roles

Second-Chance Mother
Denise Roessle
Adoption Wisdom: A Guide to the Issues and Feelings in Adoption
Marlou Russell
The Life We Were Given: Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam
 
Dana Sachs
Hunting Shadows - An Adoptees Journey
Dan Sandifer

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
Elyse Schein
Searching for a Past: The Adopted Adult's Unique Process of Finding Identity
Jane Norris Schooler
Journey's After Adoption, Understanding Lifelong Issues
Jane Norris Schooler
Coming Together: An Adoptee's Story
Martha Shideler
Finding Fernanda: Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-Border Search for Truth
Erin Siegal
Dear Birthmother - Thank You for Our Baby
Kathleen Silber
Adopting America: Childhood, Kinship, and National Identity in Literature
Carol Singley
The Adoption Mystique: Hard Hitting Expose of the Powerful Social Stigma
That Permeates Child Adoption in the United States

 
Jana Wolf Small
Adoption Healing...a Path to Recovery
Joe Soll
Adoption Healing...A Path to Recovery for Mothers Who Lost Children to Adoption
Joe Soll
Wake Up Little Suzie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v Wade
 
Rickie Solinger
Pregnancy and Power, Revised Edition: A History of Reproductive Politics in the United States
Rickie Solinger
Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption,
Abortion, and Welfare in the United States

Rickie Solinger
Adoption Triangle
Arthur D Sorosky
The Same Smile:  The Triumph of a Mother's Love After Losing Two Daughters
Susan Mello Sousa
The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father Who Does Not Fall
Margot Starbuck
 Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion for Adoptees, Birthparents and Adoptive Parents
Jean A. S. Strauss
Beneath a Tall Tree
Jean A. S. Strauss
Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison
Deborah Jiang Stein
Hide and Seek
Janet Stuessi
Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
Jane Jeong Trenka
The Adoption Reunion Handbook
Elizabeth Trindler

The Bastard Chronicles: An Anthology:

20 Years of Adoptee Equality Activism in the U.S. and the Birth of a Bastard Nation
Marla Paul


 
The Primal Wound
Nancy Verrier
 Lost and Found: A Memoir for Mothers
 
Kate St. Vincent Vogl
Giving Away Simone
Jan L. Waldron
A Legitimate Life: A Forbidden Journey of Self-Discovery
Melinda A. Warshaw
Scattered Siblings: An Adoptee's Search for His    Biological Roots
Lawrence A Weeks
360 Square: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity
Carol Welsh
Between Light and Shadow: A Guatemalan Girls Journey through Adoption
Between Light and Shadow: A Guatemalan Girls Journey Through Adoption
Jacob Wheeler
Why be Happy when you could be Normal?
Jeannette Winterson
Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother
Jana Wolff
Groundbreaking Interventions: working with Traumatized Children, Teens and Families in Foster Care and Adoption
Jeanette Yoffe