Product Description

This is the third revised edition of the open adoption classic recommended by the Child Welfare League of America. Gently provocative, warm and convincing, this open adoption guide includes actual letters between adoptive parents and birthparents, and between the latter and the children they have

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #201880 in Books
• Published on: 1991-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback

About the Author
Kathleen Silber was born and reared in Stockton, California, graduated from the University of California at Davis and received her Master's degree in Social Welfare from the University of California at Berkeley. She is nationally known for her pioneering work in open adoption. Kathleen and her husband and two children live in California, where she is Associate Executive Director of the Independent Adoption Center in Pleasant Hill.

Phylis Speedlin, a native of Steubenville, Ohio, attended the Presbyterian School of Nursing in Pittsburgh and received her nursing degree from Incarnate Word College in San Antonio. After four years as a U.S. Army nurse, she took a law degree and practices now in San Antonio. She has two daughters who entered her life through adoption.

Customer Reviews

Not bad, but ..
I'd recommend getting either "The Adoption Book" or this one. They both have very similar bits of information. No need to get both.

Wonderful, but...
This adoption classic is a wonderful view into the post placement, lifelong relationship between all members of the adoption triad. It is not, however, a guide to writing the pre-placement, "dear birthmother letter" that potential adoptive parents must create. For that sort of help, look to Nelson Handel's also wonderfully written "Reaching Out," which provides valuable insight into the process of open adoption for those setting off to build a family in this way.

Open Adoption Process
My husband and I originally were very scared of the idea of an open adoption. This book helped us to understand that open adoptions are healthy in all aspects of the adoption triad. Birthmothers feel more secure in their decision because they have fairly regular letters/pictures delivered to them, showing them that their child is healthy and happy. The adoptive parents virtually never have to answer their childs questions about the adoption with "I don't know" and the adopted child doesn't have to wonder where he/she is from and why they were "given up." This was the most wonderful book that my husband and I read - and we have read a lot (b/c, by the way, my husband is also adopted, but with a closed adoption). He and his sister have sustained a lot of heartache searching for their birthfamilies, and this book helps adoptive parents to deal with all of the fear that they feel when dealing with an open adoption.