You Can Adopt

Starred review from June 1, 2009
This thorough and honest resource stands out among other books on the topic in both its comprehensiveness and the authors candor in discussing potentially controversial adoption-related issues. Domestic or international adoption? An infant or an older child? A sibling group? What about adopting transracially? These questions and many more are addressed here via a straightforward text interspersed with firsthand, sometimes wrenching accounts by adoptive parents, birth parents, and adoptees themselves. Rather than endorsing any one way to adopt, the contributorsexamine many approaches and outline the benefits and pitfalls of each, from making the initial decision to adopt through finding necessary support professionals (attorney, agency, social worker, and medical personnel);evaluating a potential placement; negotiating any ongoing contact with birth families; parenting adopted children; and even coping when things dont work out. Those new to some of these issues may initially be put off by the frank talk, especially about transracial adoption and adoption of children with special needs, but the time for would-be adoptive parents to consider these concepts is before an adoption plan is made, perhaps with help from an excellent handbook such as this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)