Booklists: suggested reading

 

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Adoption Booklist

 

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

Fiction

• Somebody's Daughter
  Author: Lee, Marie Myung-Ok
  Publisher: Beacon $ 23.95 ISBN: 0807083887 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Adopted by a Midwest couple, 19-year-old Sarah Thorson studies one summer in Korea and eventually embarks on a crusade to find her birth mother. Paralleling Sarah's story, Kyung-sook, a Korean woman, reflects on the child she was forced to give away.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts | Asian American Stars | Adult Books for Teens
  Updated 3.3.05
• The Lucky Gourd Shop
  Author: Scott, Joanna C.
  Publisher: MacMurray & Beck $ 27 ISBN: 1878448013 Date: 2000
  Booklist
  Joanna Scott's "smart, sensitive book about independence, identity and survival"--"The New York Times Book Review, " tells the haunting tale of three fatherless Korean children--and the mother who gave them away.
  Suggested Reading: Adoption
  Updated 7/25/00
• Gardens in the Dunes
  Author: Silko, Leslie
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684811545 Date: 1999
  BL PW
  From the acclaimed author of Almanac of the Dead - the smoldering, haunting, and incandescent story of an Indian girl orphaned by an act of white brutality and adopted by a proper Victorian family.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
• Fresh Kills
  Author: Wheat, Carolyn
  Publisher: Berkley $ 19.95 ISBN: 0425147851 Date: 1995
  Kirkus
  Former defense attorney Carolyn Wheat uses her extensive knowlegde of the law to bring a striking authenticity to this new mystery featuring criminal lawyer Cass Jameson. At the request of a colleague, Cass reluctantly ventures out of her realm of expertise to handle an adoption case. But complications arise when the young birth mother is murdered.
  Updated 10.25.05

For Kids

• The Angel Factory
  Author: Blacker, Terence
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 16.95 ISBN: 0689851715 Date: 2001
  Bulletin PW
  Thomas Wisdom seems to live the perfect life--so perfect, in fact, that it bothers him. But when he hacks into his father's computer, he discovers secret upon secret. First, that he's adopted. Then, that his parents are not human. They are angels, sent to earth to save humanity from itself. Thomas learns that he is to play a major role in this plan too --but does he want to?
  Grades: 5+ Category: Fiction | Speculative
• The Snake-Stone
  Author: Doherty, Berlie
  Publisher: Orchard $ 16.95 ISBN: 0531095126 Date: 1996
  Horn Book Kirkus PW SLJ
  While searching for his birthmother, fifteen-year-old James, a championship diver, discovers who his real parents are and where his real home is.
  Grades: 7+ Category: Fiction
• Missing Sisters
  Author: Maguire, Gregory
  Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry $ 15 ISBN: 0689505906 Date: 1994
  Kirkus
  Twelve-year-old Alice, an orphan who has never been adopted because of her physical handicap and difficult personality, is shocked to discover she has an identical twin sister living nearby.
  Grades: 5-9 Category: Fiction

Nonfiction

• The Other Mother: A Woman's Love for the Child She Gave Up for Adoption
  Author: Schaefer, Carol
  Publisher: Soho $ 19.95 ISBN: 0939149419 Date: 1991
  Kirkus
  When Carol Schaefer gave up her baby boy for adoption in 1966, the nuns at the Catholic home for unwed nothers promied that Carol would forget the whole experience and go on with her life. But 17 years of longing for her firstborn son sends Carol on a quest to find him--a quest that takes two years, exposes psychological and emotional wounds, and brings great joy.
  Updated 10.25.05
• Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir
  Author: Tucker, Neely
  Publisher: Crown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0609609769 Date: 2004
  PW Booklist LJ
  In the heart of conflict-torn Zimbabwe, an American couple fights to save the life of--and ultimately adopt--an infant girl who had been abandoned beneath an acacia tree on the day she was born.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Adult Books for Teens | Memoir Stars
  Updated 1.15.04