Showing titles in Adoption & Fostering

Harrowing, heart-breaking and often horrific were the challenges that confronted Marvin after his birth in prison. Born in distress, Marvin was wrenched from his drug-addicted parents and deposited into an orphanage. In this inspirational memoir, Marvin searches for his birth parents and battles his crack addiction with the help of the woman he loves, determined to start a family and to live his life crime and drug free.

‘The word “mesmerising” is frequently applied to memoirs, but seldom as deservedly as in the case of Girl With Dove’ Financial Times ‘Reading is a form of escape and an avid reader is an escape artist…’ Brilliantly original, funny and clever Honor Clark, Spectator, Book of the Year...

Liz Kulp, was diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) as a young teen. Knowing her challenges and understanding her strengths helped her graduate from public high school and strive to move on to independent adulthood like her peers. But, she soon learned that life within the context of a family that understood and helped her gain the desire for independence had not prepared her to live in a world filled with predators and abstract thinking. Liz unashamedly lets readers inside the hidden world of adult transition for many of our young people with FASD. It is a story you will ...

From this inauspicious beginning, entirely without support, Crystal Lindsey has created a system for survival allowing her to thrive and develop her emotional resilience. Crystal knows trauma unlocks superpowers, and she has developed biohacks to show you how to discover your own superpowers using daily gratitude and grit psychology. She gives you a story of hope and optimism while "getting real" about the challenges you will face in adulthood after growing up with abuse and/or aging out of foster care.

Melinda isn't blind; she can easily see Dylan is in a wheelchair. But that is not predominantly what she sees. Melinda sees Dylan, not what mode of transportation he happens to be in. Melinda sees a nice young guy with a heart and a brain, and a great sense of humour. That is what Melinda likes, that's what she wants, a true boyfriend. MELINDA'S PICKS UP WHERE SAMANTHA LEFT OFF. MELINDA AND DYLAN FORM A GREAT FRIENDSHIP/RELATIONSHIP IN THIS BOOK, TOLD FROM MELINDA'S POINT OF VIEW. SHE LOVES ACTING, AND THE CHALLENGES IT PROVIDES. SHE HAS HAD SOME SIBLING RIVALRY TO GIVE HER SOME OBSTACLES ...

Al is the black sheep of his family, Kate, the good shepherd of hers. Can black and white become silver, or just a dark and dangerous grey? Alastair Black has revealed a secret to his wife in a last ditch attempt to save his marriage. A return to his childhood family home at Chathill Farm is his only respite, although he is far from welcomed back by brother George. Kate, recently widowed and increasingly put upon by daughter, sister and mother, feels her life is over at fifty. Until she meets Alastair. He's everything she isn't, but he's a troubled soul, a sad clown of a man with a shady ...

Tree of Life: A Journey into the Field of Dreams by Nataša Pantović is a metaphysical biographical novel that weaves a profound narrative exploring the depths of human consciousness, spirituality, and personal transformation. Set in Findhorn, UK, this journey is both literal and mythological, encompassing experiences in Serbia, Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malta. The novel follows Nataša's adoption story as it unfolds across continents, interlacing her own spiritual quest with the universal questions that have guided her life's exploration. Through an intricate blend of personal ...

This novel is a raw and vulnerable narrative of one's journey to become a mother. The author explores the peaks and valleys in building her family through adoption and biology. Each chapter provides insight into topics such as adoption, race, love, parenthood, spirituality, sisterhood, and loss. The overarching theme of resilience and perseverance amongst hardship, leaves the reader with hope that miracles are not only possible, but real.

At just 10 years old, Kirsty has suffered a lifetime of heartache. Neglected by her teenage mother and taken into care, Kirsty thought she had found her forever family when she was fostered by Pat and Mike. But when Pat has a heart attack and collapses in front of her, Kirsty's foster family say it's her fault. Kirsty is still reeling from this rejection when she comes to live with foster carer Maggie Hartley. She acts out, smashing up Maggie's home, and even threatens to hurt the baby boy Maggie has fostered since birth.

This is a story about birds and fathers. About the young magpie that fell from its nest in a Bermondsey junkyard into Charlie Gilmour's life - and swiftly changed it. Demanding worms around the clock, riffling through his wallet, sharing his baths and roosting in his hair.... About the jackdaw kept at a Cornish stately home by Heathcote Williams, anarchist, poet, magician, stealer of Christmas and Charlie's biological father who vanished from his life in the dead of night.

In this compelling narrative, an intricate story of two families is woven together by a secret birth and adoption, forever altering the course of what could have been their lives. Through a mix of fact and fiction. this story delves into the complexities of love, heartache, and tragedy, offering an in depth exploration of the potential futures that could have unfolded for the child, who was at the center of it all.

Ruth is a twenty-eight-year-old schoolteacher in rural Mississippi in 1962. She is the daughter of a prominent Methodist minister and there are expectations for her life. When she finds herself pregnant and unwed, she did what many others did in those days: she disappears. Leaving her three-year old daughter with her parents, Ruth leaves for New Orleans under the cover of attending graduate school. She works in a piano bar, accepts the benevolence of the local church ministry for unwed mothers, and carries the baby to term. Upon his birth, she gives up her son for adoption at the church’s...

Orphaned at birth in South Korea, challenged with medical and developmental complications, and unadopted by age three, Min Soo’s hope of finding a home seems lost. But God chooses a family on the other side of the world who opens their home to this whirlwind of a child. Although Min Soo is dearly loved, his constant challenges tax his adoptive parents to the core. When he’s old enough to understand, Min Soo wonders if God has a purpose for “a child in a man’s body.” He comes to grips with the multiple obstacles he faces—except one.

Abandoned by his mother at birth, Kevin was enveloped in a labyrinth of adoption, addiction, and child sexual abuse. By age 20, a shell of the boy he once was, Kevin succumbed completely to a suicidal lifestyle of drug dealing and prostitution. At 45, after many years of recovery, Kevin began a painful journey to uncover his origins, and the hopeful search for his mother. Dear Stephen Michael’s Mother chronicles the unfolding of these two stories.

Foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, arrived in Zimbabwe in 1997. After witnessing firsthand the devastating consequences of AIDS on the population, especially the children, the couple started volunteering at an orphanage that was desperately underfunded and short-staffed. One...

I was four months old when I was adopted, taken from an orphanage and placed into what was supposed to be a loving family. But love had conditions. Survival had rules. And silence was the price of staying. By sixteen, I had already learned how to disappear—into alcohol, into drugs, into the arms of men who didn’t care if I made it out alive. By eighteen, I was a mother, barely keeping my head above water, raising a child while still a child myself. When I got pregnant again at twenty-one, I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going to drag another innocent life into my chaos.

Faces of Foster Care has heartfelt and frank messages from people around the country who have been involved in some way with foster care. Told like mini memoirs, their inspiring and sometimes heartbreaking stories bring us into their lives and show us unique perspectives of foster care in the United States.

Robert Tickner had always known he was adopted but had rarely felt much curiosity about his origins. Serving in the Hawke and Keating governments, he held the portfolio of minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs, and while there he was instrumental in instigating the national inquiry into the Stolen Generations. When, in his 40s, Robert at last turned his attention to the question of his own birth, he had some sense of the potentially life-changing course that lay ahead of him.

A rockstar adopts a son. In his own words, he expresses just how he feels about his new son. There are expressions of love, protection, care. There are promises to look out for him in his future. In this loving poem, every parent will recognize the importance of the bond between parents and children, and the blossoming of a lifelong relationship.

How does a mother cope when she is forced to walk away from her three children and never see them again? That is what happened to JB's mother, Myrtle. Eventually, rescued from her despair by tall, dark, and handsome George Rowley, who fell in love with her, Myrtle started a new life and had seven more children. She buried the grief of losing her first children deep within and kept her pain secret. JB and her siblings were unaware of the existence of Myrtle's first three children until after she died.