Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
17
result(s) for
"Adoptees Biography."
Sort by:
Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform American Adoption
Jean Paton (1908-2002) fought tirelessly to reform American adoption and to overcome prejudice against adult adoptees and women who give birth out of wedlock. Paton wrote widely and passionately about the adoption experience, corresponded with policymakers as well as individual adoptees, promoted the psychological well-being of adoptees, and facilitated reunions between adoptees and their birth parents. E. Wayne Carp's masterful biography brings to light the accomplishments of this neglected civil-rights pioneer, who paved the way for the explosive emergence of the adoption reform movement in the 1970s. Her unflagging efforts over five decades helped reverse harmful policies, practices, and laws concerning adoption and closed records, struggles that continue to this day.
eBook
Shadow migration : mapping a life
\"With her feet firmly rooted on the plains of Nebraska, Suzanne Ohlmann launches us into flight over miles and decades of migration: to college in Minnesota, freelance musician life in New York, global health work in rural India, and finally, to the basement of her current home in San Antonio, Texas. There, the ghost of a teenage suicide victim forces Suzanne to confront her shadow self and make a choice: uncover the truth of her biological past, or be consumed by the same, dark depression of the boy who took his own life\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Surrendered Child
Surrendered Child is Karen Salyer McElmurray's raw, poignant account of her journey from her teen years, when she put her newborn child up for adoption, to adulthood and a desperate search for the son she never knew. In a patchwork narrative interwoven with dark memories from her childhood, McElmurray deftly treads where few dare--into a gritty, honest exploration of the loss a birth mother experiences.
The year was 1973, a time of social upheaval, even in small-town Kentucky, where McElmurray grew up. More than a story of time and place, however, this is about a girl who, at the age of sixteen, relinquished her son at birth. Twenty-five years would pass before McElmurray began sharing this part of her past with others and actively looking for her son.
McElmurray's own troubled upbringing and her quest after a now-fully-grown son are the heart of her story. With unflinching honesty, McElmurray recounts both the painful surrendering and the surprise rediscovery of her son, juxtaposed with her portrayal of her own mother, who could not provide the love she needed. The dramatic result is a story of birthright lost and found--and an exploration of the meaning of motherhood itself.
eBook
All you can ever know : a memoir
Chung investigates the mysteries and complexities of her transracial adoption in this chronicle of unexpected family for anyone who has struggled to figure out where they belong.
Book
Red Dust Road
Growing up in 70s Scotland as the adopted mixed raced child of a Communist couple, young Jackie blossoms into an outspoken, talented poet. Then she decides to find her birth parents… Based on the soul-searching memoir by Scots Makar Jackie Kay, Red Dust Road takes you on a journey from Nairn to Lagos, full of heart, humour and deep emotions. Discover how we are shaped by the folk songs we hear as much as by the cells in our bodies.
eBook
Jean Paton and the struggle to reform American adoption
\"Pioneering adoption activist Jean Paton (1908-2002) fought effectively for 50 years to reform American adoption. Paton gave adult adoptees a voice and provided them with a healthy self-image; facilitated thousands of meetings between adult adoptees and their families of origin; fought to open sealed adoption records; and indefatigably explained the adoption experience to a wider public. Paton's ceaseless activity created the preconditions for the explosive emergence of the adoption reform movement in the 1970s. She was also instrumental in the formation of two of the movement's most vital organizations, Concerned United Birthparents and the American Adoption Congress. Using previously unexamined sources, historian E. Wayne Carp offers the first-ever biography of Jean Paton. Beginning in 1951, Paton, a twice-adopted, middle-aged ex-social worker, dedicated her life to overcoming American society's prejudices against adult adoptees and women who give birth out of wedlock. Her unflagging efforts over the next five decades helped reverse social workers' harmful policy and practice concerning adoption and sealed adoption records and change lawmakers' enactment of laws prejudicial to adult adoptees and birth mothers, struggles that continue to this day\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Surrendered Child
Surrendered Child is Karen Salyer McElmurray's raw, poignant account of her journey from her teen years, when she put her newborn child up for adoption, to adulthood and a desperate search for the son she never knew. In a patchwork narrative interwoven with dark memories from her childhood, McElmurray deftly treads where few dare—into a gritty, honest exploration of the loss a birth mother experiences.
The year was 1973, a time of social upheaval, even in small-town Kentucky, where McElmurray grew up. More than a story of time and place, however, this is about a girl who, at the age of sixteen, relinquished her son at birth. Twenty-five years would pass before McElmurray began sharing this part of her past with others and actively looking for her son.
McElmurray's own troubled upbringing and her quest after a now-fully-grown son are the heart of her story. With unflinching honesty, McElmurray recounts both the painful surrendering and the surprise rediscovery of her son, juxtaposed with her portrayal of her own mother, who could not provide the love she needed. The dramatic result is a story of birthright lost and found—and an exploration of the meaning of motherhood itself.
eBook
Palimpsest : documents from a Korean adoption
\"Thousands of South Korean children were adopted around the world in the 1970s and 1980s. More than nine thousand found their new home in Sweden, including the cartoonist Lisa Wool-Rim Sjèoblom, who was adopted when she was two years old. Throughout her childhood she struggled to fit into the homogenous Swedish culture and was continually told to suppress the innate desire to know her origins. \"Be thankful,\" she was told; surely her life in Sweden was better than it would have been in Korea. Like many adoptees, Sjèoblom learned to bury the feeling of abandonment. In Palimpsest, an emotionally charged memoir, Sjèoblom's unaddressed feelings about her adoption come to a head when she is pregnant with her first child. When she discovers a document containing the names of her biological parents, she realizes her own history may not match up with the story she's been told her whole life: that she was an orphan without a background. As Sjèoblom digs deeper into her own backstory, returning to Korea and the orphanage, she finds that the truth is much more complicated than the story she was told and struggled to believe. The sacred image of adoption as a humanitarian act that gives parents to orphans begins to unravel. Sjèoblom's beautiful autumnal tones and clear-line style belie the complicated nature of this graphic memoir's vital central question: Who owns the story of an adoption?\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Surrendered Child
Surrendered Childis Karen Salyer McElmurray's raw, poignant account of her journey from her teen years, when she put her newborn child up for adoption, to adulthood and a desperate search for the son she never knew. In a patchwork narrative interwoven with dark memories from her childhood, McElmurray deftly treads where few dare--into a gritty, honest exploration of the loss a birth mother experiences.
The year was 1973, a time of social upheaval, even in small-town Kentucky, where McElmurray grew up. More than a story of time and place, however, this is about a girl who, at the age of sixteen, relinquished her son at birth. Twenty-five years would pass before McElmurray began sharing this part of her past with others and actively looking for her son.
McElmurray's own troubled upbringing and her quest after a now-fully-grown son are the heart of her story. With unflinching honesty, McElmurray recounts both the painful surrendering and the surprise rediscovery of her son, juxtaposed with her portrayal of her own mother, who could not provide the love she needed. The dramatic result is a story of birthright lost and found--and an exploration of the meaning of motherhood itself.
eBook