An Annotated Directory Of Adoption And Related Literature

This extensive annotated bibliography covers the literature published since 1900 suitable for children and young adults dealing in some fashion with adoption. The 503 titles annotated in this volume are divided into fiction and nonfiction by reading level. A comprehensive subject, as well as title and author index, assures access to the books cited within the bibliography. Although most of the books included feature adoption as a main theme, others use adoption as a secondary theme, while others have characters who just happen to be adopted. The lengthy annotations will allow the readers an opportunity to evaluate each title's usefulness. The bibliography encompasses such topics as the age of arrival, sibling adoption, single-parent adoption, foster parent adoption, step-parent and relative adoption, transracial and intercountry adoption, Amerasian children, racial identity, minority families, special needs, large families, birthparents, search and reunion, surrogacy and open adoption, and some of the less pleasant aspects of adoption. This book, compiled by a reference librarian who is also an adoptive parent, brings a wealth of information to adoptees, adoptive parents and support groups, adoption agencies and their personnel, librarians, educators and family therapists. The experiences and emotions described in the hundreds of compiled titles duplicate and validate those of every adoptive family. Each title includes complete bibliographic information, pagination, and OCLC number (when available). Also featured is a selective resource list and a directory of adoption-related organizations.

Learn the “who,” “what,” and “why” of unbecoming a mother In a society where becoming a mother is naturalized, “unbecoming” a mother—the process of coming to live apart from biological children—is regarded as unnatural, improper, or even contemptible. Few mothers are more stigmatized than those who are perceived as having given up, surrendered, or abandoned their birth children. Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence examines this phenomenon within the social and historical context of parenting in Canada, Australia, Britain, and the United States, with critical observations from social workers, policymakers, and historians. This unique book offers insights from the perspectives of children on the outside looking in and the lived experiences of women on the inside looking out. Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence explores how gender, race, class, and other social agents affect the ways women negotiate their lives apart from their children and how they attempt to recreate their identities and family structures. An interdisciplinary, international collection of academics, community workers, and mothers draws upon sources as diverse as archival records, a therapist’s interview, a dance script, and the class presentation of a student to offer refreshing insights on maternal absence that are innovative, accessible, and inspiring. Unbecoming Mothers examines five assumptions about maternal absence and the families that emerge from that absence: the focus on parenting as highly gendered caring work done by women the idea that women share the same experience of unbecoming mothers and share the same circumstances and background the perception of maternal absence as a recent phenomenon the notion that women who want to manage their mother-work will make choices to overcome life’s obstacles the Western concept of womanhood being achieved through motherhood and the unrealistic ideal of the “good mother” Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence is a rich, multidisciplinary resource for academics working in women’s studies, psychology, sociology, history, and any health-related fields, and for policymakers, social workers, and other community workers.