We have compiled some excellent resources for prospective adoptive parents. While this list is not exhaustive, it provides an excellent beginning to understanding adoption.
Books
Hospitious Adoption (by James Gritter): This book explores open adoption, “done right.” Goodwill and respect and the true meaning of “hospitality” in adoption helps the process unfold smoothly and for the benefit of each child.
The Family of Adoption (by Joyce Maguire Pavao): Puts a complicated subject into a readable language and easy to understand terms.
The Open-Hearted Way of Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grown Up Whole (by Lori Holden and Crystal Hass): This excellent, heartfelt, and personal book is written by an adoptive mother and a birth mother about creating and maintaining a successful open adoption that places the child at the center of the adoption.
In On It: What Adoptive Parents Would Like You to Know About Adoption (by Elisabeth O’Toole): In On It is a friendly and helpful guide that offers advice and anecdotes from adoptive parents, adopted persons, and adoption professionals. This book is a wonderful guide that warmly welcomes family, friends, colleagues, teachers, and other professionals into the realm of adoption.
The Adoption Resource Book (By Lois Gilman): Covers the adoption procedure from learning about adoption through preparing for your child, and raising an adopted child.
The Essential Adoption Handbook (by Colleen Alexander-Roberts): This book is a guide to effectively and aggressively organizing your search for a child. It includes sample agency application and home study forms.
Adoption & the Jewish Family: Contemporary Perspectives (by Shelley Rosenberg): Focuses on the primary issues that confront these families, issues that until now had never been addressed in a Jewish context. To order call 215-564-5925.
In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories (by Rita J. Simon & Rhonda M. Roorda): Adoptees speak on issues such as identity and race. If you are interested in adopting African American or biracial children or have been adopted transracially, this is a must read. Includes Friends in Adoption staff member Jessica’s personal adoption story.
The Long Awaited Stork: A Guide to Parenting After Infertility (by Ellen Sarasohn Glazer): Even after they become parents, many people still feel the impact of being infertile. This book deals with the effects of parents’ infertility as their children grow.
Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race (by Sharon E. Rush):
A must read for any white person – especially those seriously considering adopting across the color line.
Open Adoption Experience (by Lois Ruskai Melma and Sharon Kaplan Roszia): Adoption experts guide you through all stages of the open adoption experience.
Raising Adopted Children: A Manual for Adoptive Parents (by Lois Ruskai Melina): A parent’s guide to rearing children in an adoptive family. It examines the child’s physical, emotional and psychological development at every age.
When Friends Ask About Adoption (by Linda Bothun): Friends and family often have questions about the adoption process, but they may be embarrassed or afraid to ask them. This is a question and answer guide for them.
The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide (by Arlene Istar Lev, CSW): This book thoroughly covers LGBT parenting issues. It was the first book of its kind to include transgender families. The book includes a broad range of adoption information, including transracial adoption issues, infertility, and more.
Magazines
Adoptive Families: A national adoption magazine for families before, during and after adoption.
Adoption TODAY: A magazine that addresses numerous issues surrounding adoption.
Adoption and Parenting Help and Information
Daddy and Pappa: Johnny Symon’s heartwarming and unusually funny new documentary that tells the stories of four families with gay dads. (An Emmy nominated documentary).
daddyandpapa.com
Books for Children
Adoption is for Always (by Linda Girard): This well written book involves a young girl whose parents help her to accept her feelings and includes factual information about the adoption process.
Beginnings: How Families Came To Be (by Virginia Kroll): Parents and children discuss how their families were formed.
The Day We Met You (by Phoebe Koehler): A read aloud children’s book where adoptive parents describe the day they brought their child home.
How I Was Adopted (by Joanna Cole): This book provides factual information about adoption within the context of a story.
The Mulberry Bird (by Anne Brodzinsky): A fictional story about a young mother bird who finds a good home for her baby bird.
Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born (by Jamie Lee Curtis): A read aloud book that offers parents the opportunity to use the adoption story in the book to explain their child’s adoption story to him/her.
Online Articles
Scrutinizing Would-Be Parents (by Arlene Istar Lev, CSW) http://choicesconsulting.com/2013/04/22/scrutinizing-would-be-parents/ (This article pertains to homestudies, and has a focus on LGBT issues.)