Edited by Susan Wadia-Ells

About the Anthology

These personal essays and stories are informed by the contemporary adoption movement and raise timely issues that illustrate its complexity, among them: open and closed adoption, cross-cultural adoption, the birth record debate, the experience of biracial adoptees, adoption by lesbian couples and the search for identity.

The Adoption Reader is a helpful, hopeful and vital collection about growth and self-understanding and a must-read book for anyone who has been touched by the adoption experience.

From Library Journal

Educator, writer, and adoptive mother Wadia-Ells has put together an enthralling set of essays from birth mothers, adopted mothers, and adopted daughters. Each story reveals a different facet of the adoption process and of family life in general. This work is recommended for all public libraries, and academic libraries that support a women's study program would also do well to purchase it.

Jackie's Essay: "Mother To Mother"

When my son Dan was born, I learned I could love a birthmother as much as I loved my own mother.