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A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents
 
 
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A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents [Hardcover]

Pamela Kruger (Co-editor), Jill Smolowe (Co-editor)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)


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Book Description

November 3, 2005
Adoption now affects more American families than ever before-1.5 million adopted children live in the United States today, and 60 percent of Americans report some kind of personal connection to adoption. Happily, this surge has coincided with an increasing mainstream acceptance of adoption as just another way to form a family, complete with its own frustrations and joys that deserve to be discussed and celebrated.

A Love Like No Other does just that. It features twenty leading writers, all of whom are adoptive parents, discussing their personal experiences. They include adoptive parents of children of other races, like Emily Prager, who grapples with how to best keep her daughter connected to her Chinese roots; parents whose families blend biological children and adopted children, like bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard; single mothers of only children, like journalist Sheila Stainback; and same-sex adoptive parents like Jesse Green, who wonders how his sons will feel when instructed to make a Mother's Day card. They live in big cities and small towns, and have adopted domestically and overseas. Some of their stories soberingly address the potential complications of adoptive parenting, while others tell of happily enriched family lives.

Impressive for both its breadth and its quality, A Love Like No Other is a timely and heartwarming mosaic of the contemporary lives of adoptive parents and their children. In elegant prose and with refreshing honesty, these essays will introduce you to a group of families you won't soon forget.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From various perspectives, 20 adoptive parents offer evocative, sometimes provocative, personal essays that have the liveliness and immediacy of prose fiction. Biological parents are variously imagined, sought and found in the opening section, "Reflections on Birth Parents." In "Encounters with the Unexpected," adoptive parents confront "postadoption depression," family wariness, ethnic identity issues and disabling psychological problems. Each family (single parent, gay parent, divorced parents, intra-family adoption, blended family) is adoptive in its unique way, persuasively confirmed in "Variations on Family." While the early sections focus on the parent-child relationship, the concluding "Personal Transformations" leans toward the child-to-parent effect; as one writer puts it, "I knew a child would rearrange my home life, but upend my career and worldview? Those two items weren't even on my list." Any parent will find commonality here, but the collection will especially engage adoptive parents in conversation and controversy with people who share their dilemmas and delights. Diverse as this collection is, it's worth noting that the essayists are professional writers (they include Jacquelyn Mitchard, Emily Prager and Dan Savage), most of the children are preadolescent and 11 of the adoptions are transnational (five of them from China).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

...a handy tool for adoptive parents-to-be or for those who simply want to learn the ins and outs. -- The Chicago Tribune, January 8, 2006

...a magical and candid collection, which I found impossible to put down -- Marybeth Lambe, Adoptive Families, December 2005

A Love Like No Other, accordingly, leans more in a literary direction than an instructional one. -- New York Times, November 27, 2005

Kruger and Smolowe's collection offers an exploration of raising adopted children as multidimensional as the experience itself. -- San Francisco Chronicle, November 6, 2005

[T]hese 19 moving dispatches speak most powerfully about contemporary family life. -- Health, November 2005

[an] impressive array of skillfully executed essays from the perspective of adoptive parents. -- Library Journal, November 1, 2005

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; 1 edition (November 3, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1573223166
  • ISBN-13: 978-1573223164
  • Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,471,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for Adoptive Families/Friends, December 3, 2005
This review is from: A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents (Hardcover)
I saw this book advertised in Adoptive Families magazine and immediately ordered it. So many of the essays spoke to me even though each detailed experience was different. Stories about domestic adoptions, post adoption depression, international adoption, open adoption, special needs adoption, response of family to the adoption and more are shared in an honest and touching manner. As a mom of 3 boys (2 adopted from China) I could relate to many of the experiences which were written about. Not only did the essays cause me to reflect on experiences our family has already gone through, but provided me with insight on experiences we will very likely face in the future (racism at school, discussions about birth parents, whether to or when to take our children back to the country of birth, teenage identity issues, etc) This book is a must read not only for parents who have or will adopt a child but for their families and friends as well.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Honest, moving and funny. A book for every parent., November 3, 2005
By 
M. Lewis (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents (Hardcover)
I bought this excellent book for friends who are in the process of adopting a child and found myself unable to put it down. Besides being beautifully written the essays are insightful and personal -- ranging from funny and surprising to heartbreaking stories about love and what it means to be a parent. A must read.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A world revealed, November 10, 2005
By 
Icarus (Copake, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents (Hardcover)
What drew me to this book was my interest in understanding different life experiences. What I did not expect was to get such an honest, poignant and intense look into the diverse journeys some people have made in the process of adoption. Of all these incredibly engrossing stories, I think I was most affected, and surprised, by Melissa Fay Greene's painful struggle (painful for her and painful to read) with "post-adoption panic" ( I never heard of such a syndrome). She exposes her VERY personal and very troubling self-doubt about her newly-adopted Bulgarian (?) son and if she can truly love him. Wondering if she's the only person who ever felt this way, instantly made her troubles so "real' and, in turn, so universal to me. What a difficult topic to discuss publicly. I cannot imagine that most books on the subject have been willing to explore and reveal such a candid account of an adoption.
I am not married, and do not intend to have children of my own, so this book really took me somewhere that, until now, was quite alien to me. I'm very glad I chose this particular book on adoption, because I imagine it's a uniquely honest and diverse presentation of the subject. Now, I can move on to the next life experience.
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
many adoptive parents, birth mom
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mother's Day, New York City, United States, New Orleans, Red Apple, San Francisco, Big Daddy, Father's Day, Sister Ana, Chinese New Year, Nay Mama, The Fallout, Two Destinies
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