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Articles and books we recommend if you want more information about the adoption experience.
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Suggested Articles & Books
These are the articles and books we recommend reading if you want additional information about the adoption experience.
Articles by our coaches
Support for Adoptive Parents: Know Your Options
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What to Expect From An Adoption Coach
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Creating an Adoption Plan With Your Adoption Coach
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Pre-Adoption: The Big Questions to Ask and Answer
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Support for Adopted Children: Know Your Options
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Our featured posts on other sites
Understanding the Need for Positive Adoption Language
Featured on Adopting.com
Moving Beyond “Color Blind” Parenting to Value The Human Rainbow
Featured on Adopting.com
The Secret to Creating a Successful Open Adoption Relationship with a Birth Mother
Featured on AmericaAdopts.com
How Open Adoption Builds Bridges to Healing
Featured on AmericaAdopts.com
Giving Thanks for Adoption
Featured on AmericaAdopts.com
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Four GIFT coaches, three adoptive moms and an adoptee, share what they wish they’d known: the different paths to adoption, the qualities that help, and the child’s side of the story. (38 min)
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Books written by our coaches
Reimagining Adoption: What Adoptees Seek from Families and Faith
by Sally Ankerfelt, M. Div., and Gayle H. Swift, CPC
This book aligns personal experience, trauma research, expert insights, and adoptee interviews into adoption-attuned strategies that support adoptees and their families. It is intended for anyone who is interested in understanding adoption through the lens of faith as well as how congregations can grow in support of adoptees and their families.
ABC, Adoption & Me (Revised & Reillustrated)
by Gayle H. Swift
Using the familiar framework of an alphabet book, it introduces a range of adoption-connected concepts, from the very simple such as “B is for bellybutton. Everyone has one.” to “R is for real.” Includes a Parent Guide.
We’re Adopted, So What? Teens Tell It Like It Is
Aimed at middle-schoolers
Kids need to see themselves in the books they read. This book tells the story of a diverse group of girls and the complex emotions and thoughts that often come with being adopted. Includes pages where readers can record their own thoughts.
More reading
Additional authors and titles
More books we recommend, grouped by who they are written for.
Picture books for young children
- Who’s in My Family: All about Our Families by Robie H. Harris
- A Gift Little Tree
- Frankie and Friends Talk Adoption
- Forever Fingerprints by Sherrie Eldridge
- Help A Hamster by Hilary Robinson
- Personal Space Camp by Julia Cook
- I Can’t Believe You Said That by Julia Cook
- I Choose
- Lullaby (for a Black Mother), illustrated by Sean Qualls
- In Our Mother’s House by Patricia Polacco
- And Tango Makes Three
- Jack & Emma’s Adoption Journey
- Kids Like Me in China
- Motherbridge of Love
- A Place in My Heart by Mary Grossnickle
- Three Names of Me
- Let’s Talk About It: Adoption by Fred Rogers
- Yushi and the Tall Man by Tami Staut
Books for tweens and teens
- As Simple As It Seems by Sarah Weeks
- One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
- Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be, edited by L. Ballard
- Scattered Links by M. Weidenbenner
- How It Feels to Be Adopted by Jill Krementz
Books for adoptive and foster parents
- Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency
- Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge
- The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis
- The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child by Nancy Newton Verrier
- Being Adopted by David Brodzinsky, Marshall D. Schechter, and Robin Marantz Henig
- The Adoptive & Foster Parent Guide by Carol Lozier, LCSW
- Adopting the Hurt Child by Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky
- Parenting Adopted Adolescents by Gregory C. Keck
- Building the Bonds of Attachment by Daniel A. Hughes
- The Open-hearted Way to Open Adoption
- Raising Adopted Children by Lois Melina
- The Unofficial Guide to Adoptive Parenting by Sally Donovan
- The 5 Love Languages of Children by Chapman & Campbell
- The Newbies Guide to Positive Parenting by Rebecca Eanes
- The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and The Blessing of a B Minus by Wendy Mogel
- Anger: How To Live With And Without It by Albert Ellis
- Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt
- Adoption & the Jewish Family by Shelley Krapnek Rosenberg
- Adoption and Suicidality: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Resources
Books for relatives and friends
- Adoption Is a Family Affair: What Relatives and Friends Must Know by Patricia Irwin Johnston
- In On It: What Adoptive Parents Would Like You To Know About Adoption by Elizabeth O’Toole
Adoptee voices, memoirs and history
- The Adoption Paradox: Putting Adoption in Perspective
- Adoption Unfiltered
- The Adoptee Survival Guide
- You Don’t Look Adopted
- Sacred Connections: Stories of Adoption by Mary Ann Koenig
- The Shoebox Effect by Marcie Keithley
- The Eye of Adoption by Jody Cantrell Dyer
- No Matter What by Sally Donovan
- The Tell: A Memoir by Mags Karn
- Counting Down: A Memoir of Foster Parenting and Beyond by Deborah Gold
- Fall or Fly: The Strangely Hopeful Story of Foster Care and Adoption in Appalachia by Wendy Welch
- Who Is a Worthy Mother? by Rebecca Wellington
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