Reading Resources

This section listed a wide variety of books concerning adoption, adopted children, attachment bonds and parenting for your reference. Feel free to contact us should you have any comments.

Attachment

  • Attaching in Adoption, by Deborah Gray

    • An excellent resource for adoptive parents who wanted to get a thorough understanding of the attachment concept and its application in order to enhance the attachment bond between children and parents.

  • Adopting the Hurt Child: Hope for Families with Special Needs Kids, by Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky L.S.W

    • It serves as a complete guide of adoption preparations. It outlined specific strategies and tips to develop positive attachment bonds.

  • When Love is Not Enough, by Nancy Thomas

    • An excellent book that offers great insights on methods to help children with attachment issues and disorder to handle tough situations; the book also provides hope and practical advice to families in the "trenches" of raising a child with attachment issues.

  • Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow, by Gregory Keck, Ph.D and Regina Kupecky L.S.W

    • The authors listed a wide variety of adoption scenarios and further discussed ways to assist children healing from their past traumas. Practical examples of actual foster and adoptive families can be found throughout the book.

  • Facilitating Developmental Attachment, by Daniel Hughes

    • This book is a well-respected resource within the adoption community, explaining how to lead a child with attachment challenges into meaningful interactions with parents and others. This book focuses on ways to engage and solve attachment challenges in compassionate, humane, humorous and understandable ways at the same time.

  • Handbook of Attachment:Theory, Research and Clinical Applications, edited by Jude Cassidy and Philip R. Shaver

    • The book contains a collection of attachment theories and experiments.

  • Don't Touch: Healing the Pain of an Unattached Child, by Lunda Gianforte Mansfield and Christopher H. Waldmann, M.A., LPC.

    • This reading resource narrated the experience of a child with attachment disorder. The authors further pointed out the reasons for lack of trust from a child's perspective.

  • Becoming Attached:Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its impact on Later Life, by Robert Karen

    • The publication discussed the important bonding phases between a mother and her child from the very beginning until the post-developmental stage. It also focuses on key questions such as early childhood value system development and the importance of daycare centers and their impacts.

  • The Primal Wound:Understanding the Adopted Child, by Nancy Verrier

    • The author focuses on losses that are inherent in the adoption process and validates the infant loss realization perspective, in which precedes the language developmental stage.

Parenting/Adoption Parenting

  • The Whole Life Adoption Book, by Jayne Schooler

    • It is a practical and straight- forward resource book that should be read by adoptive parents; it has a comprehensive coverage of pre-adoptive issues and useful hints on bringing up adopted children.

  • Real Parents, Real Children, by Holy van Gulden and Lisa M. Bartels-Rabb

    • This publication is considered as a classic "must have" by many adoptive professionals and families. It contained practical advice for parents on how to communicate with their children about their adoptive identities and assist them through any challenges as they mature.

  • How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

    It is a complete solution guide of common child and parent conflicts; the authors also further discussed emotional management and concern addressing.

  • Twenty Things Adoptive Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew, by Sherrie Eldridge

    The publication addressed and discussed the complex emotional stress of adopted children, and at the same time provided different perspectives from adoptees, adoptive parents and adoption experts.

  • Toddler Adoption: The Weaver's Craft, by Mary Hopkins Best

    This book offered useful hints for parents who are adopting toddlers. It mainly focused on unique challenges presented at this age and how they might integrate into the adoption experience.

  • LifeBooks: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child, by Beth O'Malley

    This is a sensitive and practical guide for families to help their children understand their unique life-stories.

  • Adoption Lifebook:A Bridge to Your Child's Beginnings, by Cindy Probst

    This is a great life book preparation guide for those who wanted to create a special life journal for their adopted children.

  • Parenting from the Inside Out, by Jeremy P. Tarcher

    It focused on discussing parenting techniques and methods to eliminate past experiences from parenthood.

  • Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline MD and Jim Fay

    A classic parental book with extensive insights and strategies.

Children

  • When You Were Born in China:A Memory Book for Children Adopted from China, by Sara Dorow and Stephen Wunrow

    It covered various conversational techniques and guidelines for discussions over the adoptees' birth country-China. Strong visual photographs enhance the level of enjoyment and imagination during the explorations of adopted children's initial cultural heritages.

  • Kids Like Me In China, by Ying Ying Fry and Amy Klatzkin

    Written from the perspective of an adopted Chinese girl, this book is an overview of her experiences, in which many adoption aspects that adults often struggled to explain are included.

  • Twice Upon a Time:Born and Adopted, by Leanora Patterson

    This book is geared to help young children understand the practical logistics of being born as well as being adopted; a very instructive tool to assist children in identifying distinctions between being born and being adopted and how those pieces connect with each other.

  • The Mulberry Tree, by Anne Braff Brodzinsky

    It is a story of a young single mother bird caring for her baby bird during her difficult times of great troubles and personal perils. She ultimately decided to place her beloved baby bird in a different bird family that can provide stable and safe shelter (something she failed to do continuously).

  • A Mother for Choco, by Keiko Kasza

    It narrated the story about a mother bear caring for a young bird (an example similar to a multi-racial adoptive family). The author tried to point out that racial and cultural differences would not prevent a good mother from taking good care of her children. Even though the bear and the little bird were different in appearances and life styles, the bear still could be a great mother if she had the patience and love.