Biography Adoption

Whack.... At three in the morning Gina was sound asleep, yet somehow she was smacked in the head. She looked over at her husband, thinking perhaps he accidentally rolled over and flopped his arm on top of her, but he was sleeping soundly and facing the opposite direction. She turned to the other side and glaring back at her was her eight-year-old child.

Cuong was born during the Vietnamese war and was transported in a cardboard box, by soldiers, to Australia where he was adopted. Other children objected to his exotic appearance, so different from that of his curly-haired, blue-eyed family, but his adopted family always reassured him and his brother stuck up for him against bullies. Through Cuong's eyes, children can learn about the pain of being different and the joy of being loved, by people who adopt, adore and stand up for him.

Born in 1938 and adopted soon after, Kate Foley grew up in London during WWII. The Don't Touch Garden explores what it is to be adopted, both for the child and the adoptive parents, through a wide range of poetic styles and complex emotions.