Biography Adoption

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.

Jack Rocco was a baby when he was adopted by a blue-collar, Italian American family. Today a successful orthopedic surgeon, Jack’s identity was built around his Italian heritage, and while he knew the story of his “Gotday,” he didn’t know the story of his birth day. His was a closed adoption, and he only knew that his birth parents were a young couple—an Italian father and a German Irish mother—who couldn’t afford a child.

Saturday Night Live veteran Julia Sweeney’s “endearing series of true tales from parenthood’s front lines” (O, The Oprah Magazine) is a funny, smart tour de force that reads like a conversation with your best friend. In these candidly witty and poignant essays, comedienne and writer...

Includes an audiobook-exclusive song by Todd Tilghman, “Sandcastles.” Read by the author. Learn to celebrate the smallest victories and unlock some of life's greatest joys! What does a forty-two-year-old, small-town pastor do when he wins one of the most popular singing competitions in the...

No matter how broken our past or great our misfortunes, we can create a new beginning and build a life of love and kindness. Taken from his mother at age three, Steve Klakowicz lives in the clutches of a cruel foster family. He finds his only refuge in a box of books given to him by a kind...

Everyone loves coming-home stories, especially when they include dogs and happy endings! From Steven Carino and Alex Tresniowski comes Oliver for Young Readers, a heartwarming and true story of a man searching for a beloved lost dog and finding more than he’d ever hoped for. When Steven Carino...

An abortion survivor and leading pro-life spokeswoman tells her inspiring and sometimes surprising story of redemption, healing, and forgiveness, offering grace and support—not shame—to women facing the most difficult decision of their lives. “Claire’s heart-wrenching and inspiring story...

For all women looking to find “hope in a hopeless world and bravery in an age that seems to lack it,” comes a searing memoir by Shannon Dingle, a writer and disability advocate who has navigated loss, trauma, abuse, spiritual reawakening, and deep pain—and come out the other side still...

Disruptors, entrepreneurs, and unconventional do-gooders, Drs. Jodi and Garry Vermaas are not the people you would expect to parent 12 children. From the child-trafficking slums of Manila to the barren corners of China to the baggage compartment of a long-distance train to Mumbai, each of their children has a tale to tell - if only they could find the words.

House on Fire, a raw and riveting memoir by author and publisher Jenn T. Grace, explores her journey growing up as an adopted child in a chaotic household. Surviving a turbulent childhood marked by family conflict, mental illness, and alcoholism, Grace promises herself that life will get better. But as an adult, Grace’s personal and professional successes belie her inner turmoil.

From her childhood in China to the moment she won her first National Book Award, literary icon Katherine Paterson shares the personal stories that inspired her children's books. Told with her trademark humor and heart, Paterson's tales reveal details about her life from her childhood with missionary parents, to living as a single woman in Japan, to raising four children in suburban Maryland with her minister husband.

Everybody knows what adoption is, but adoption has changed dramatically over recent decades. Open adoptions create an opportunity for biological parents to remain connected with the child even after the adoption takes place. Emotionally, this is still largely uncharted territory for everybody involved and relationships can be difficult to navigate. Told from the point of view of an adoptive father, the journey the Elkins took is such a roller coaster ride you would think this true story was fiction.

Everybody knows what adoption is, but adoption has changed dramatically over recent decades. Open adoptions create an opportunity for biological parents to remain connected with the child even after the adoption takes place. Emotionally, this is still largely uncharted territory for everybody involved and relationships can be difficult to navigate. Told from the point of view of an adoptive father, the journey the Elkins took is such a roller coaster ride you would think this true story was fiction.

In Bitterroot Susan Devan Harness traces her journey to understand the complexities and struggles of being an American Indian child adopted by a white couple and living in the rural American West. When Harness was fifteen years old, she questioned her adoptive father about her “real” parents. He replied that they had died in a car accident not long after she was born—except they hadn’t, as Harness would learn in a conversation with a social worker a few years later.

Extraordinary Women of Faith highlights over 30 remarkable female figures, whose unwavering faith and amazing courage have left a lasting mark on our world. These short, accessible biographies will inspire readers to take action and let their God-given gifts shine for all to see. Meet some...

Michael Reagan's life is much more than just an interesting story. It is a testimony of how Christ allowed him to find healing from many of the issues that confront our culture today, such as sexual abuse, divorce, loneliness, the feeling of rejection, and the belief that God does not care about us. Michael Reagan's first adoption gave him an identity, but he did not find his true identity until he found Christ.

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.

Born in Africa to a Nigerian princess, Precious Williams was less than one year old when her mother put an ad in Nursery World: "Pretty Nigerian baby girl needs new home." Precious's mother had flown to London in search of a new life - a life in which there was no space for a daughter. The first response came rom a 60-year-old white woman, Nan, who prided herself for being "color blind." Correspondence were exchanged, no questions asked, and Precious left her mother for Nan's home in rural England.

Everybody knows what adoption is, but adoption has changed dramatically over recent decades. Open adoptions create an opportunity for biological parents to remain connected with the child even after the adoption takes place. Emotionally, this is still largely uncharted territory for everybody involved and relationships can be difficult to navigate. Told from the point of view of an adoptive father, the journey the Elkins took is such a roller coaster ride you would think this true story was fiction.

Meet Patrick Butler and Melyssa Fleming, a dynamic brother-sister duo juggling parenthood, thriving careers, active volunteerism, podcasting, and now, writing. In The Bond We Share, they open up about their upbringing in the Midwest, where their parents’ decision to adopt Melyssa initially brought joy, but later faced challenges due to extended family dynamics and mental health struggles. The siblings were abruptly separated during their formative years, disrupting the foundation of their sibling bond.