Adoption and Culture 30% DISCOUNT CODE: ASAC26 Offer valid until 31 July 2026
Torn from the Root
Who Is a Worthy Mother?
A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee Rhonda M. Roorda
As a Black child adopted and raised by white Evangelical parents, Rhonda Roorda had to learn how to walk in two different worlds. She often questioned "whether my skin was too dark" and if she "acted too white." She recalls being haunted by feelings of shame and not "being enough." Torn from the Root is her illuminating story of identity, belonging, and purpose, and lays bare the deep pain she felt navigating life as a vulnerable Black girl and how she healed herself.
An Intimate History of Adoption Rebecca Wellington
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington’s timely—and deeply researched—account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States’ adoption industry.
Twice Blessed
09 April 2024 232pp 9780806193700 £19.99 HB
31 July 2026 250pp 8 halftones 9781439927939 £23.99 HB
A Story of Unconditional Love Stefanie Mercado Altman, Stan Altman & Claire Altman Twice Blessed is a beautifully written memoir that explores the depths of love, resilience, and the true meaning of family. Stefanie Mercado Altman, Claire Altman, and Stan Altman share an intimate and inspiring story about the bonds that define us, from adoption to caregiving and beyond. When Stefanie was adopted by Claire and Stan, their family was built on love and trust rather than biology. 07 October 2025 304pp 35 b&w illus. 9781531511807 £23.99 HB
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
Adoption Memoirs Inside Stories Marianne Novy
Adoption Memoirs tells inside stories of adoption that popular media miss. Marianne Novy shows how adoption memoirs and films recount not only happy moments, but also the lasting pain of relinquishing a child, the racism and trauma that adoptees such as Jackie Kay and Jane Jeong Trenka experienced, and the unexpected complexities of child-rearing adoptive parents Emily Prager and Jesse Green encountered. Novy considers 45 memoirs, mostly from the 21st century, by birthmothers, adoptees, and adoptive parents, about same-race and transracial adoption.
Conceiving Christian America
Embryo Adoption and Reproductive Politics Risa Cromer Cromer uncovers how embryo adoption advances ambitious political goals for expanding the influence of conservative Christian values and power. Conceiving Christian America is the first book on embryo adoption tracing how this powerful social movement draws on white saviorist tropes in their aims to reconceive personhood, with drastic consequences for reproductive rights and justice. 05 September 2023 320pp 7 b&w figures 9781479818594 £23.99 PB
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
A Generation Removed
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
The Fostering and Adoption of Indigenous Children in the Postwar World Margaret D. Jacobs
Out of Place
The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants SunAh M Laybourn Korean adoptees routinely experience refusals of belonging, whether by state agents, laws, and regulations, in everyday interactions, or even through media portrayals that render them invisible. Laybourn, herself a Korean American adoptee, examines this long-term journey, with a particular focus on the race-making process and the contradictions inherent to the model minority myth. 16 January 2024 240pp 9781479814787 £22.99 PB
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
In Reunion
Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family Sara Docan-Morgan Drawing from qualitative interviews with adult Korean adoptees in the United States and Denmark, as well as her own experiences as an adoptee, Docan-Morgan illuminates the complexities of communication surrounding reunion. She also offers practical recommendations for transnational adoptees in reunion, adoptees considering reunion, adoptive families, and adoption practitioners.
28 June 2024 262pp 9781439925904 £24.99 PB
05 January 2024 321pp 9781439922835 £31.00 PB
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS MNGBookshop.co.uk/ASAC-2026/
In A Generation Removed, a powerful blend of history and family stories, awardwinning historian Margaret D. Jacobs examines how government authorities in the post–World War II era removed thousands of American Indian children from their families and placed them in non-Indian foster or adoptive families. By the late 1960s an estimated 25 to 35 percent of Indian children had been separated from their families. 01 August 2023 402pp 14 photos, 1 illus., 1 table 9781496235435 £26.99 PB
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Cleave Holly Pelesky Cleave is a tight collection of epistolary creative nonfiction that examines the ambiguous grief of being a birth mother caught in the momentum of adulthood and the constant choices that come along with it. In these letters to the daughter she didn't keep, Pelesky attempts to make peace with the decisions she's made as a mother and those she's made as someone's child. Full of hard realizations and tender moments, this book will break and mend your heart. 23 August 2022 116pp 9781957392097 £11.99 PB
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS