The Whole Life Adoption Book: Realistic Advice for Building a Healthy Adoptive Family

by: Jayne E. Schooler & Thomas C. Atwood

Published by: Navpress

Reviewed by Jamie Driggers

Adoption can be a wonderful and rewarding way to grow a family. But, like anything that is life changing, it is often a good idea to go into it with as much information as possible. Or, following an adoption, parents may still have questions that need answers. Enter The Whole Life Adoption Book.

In this revised and updated book (original was published in 1993), people exploring or living life as an adoptive family can find many answers they seek. Topics range greatly and cover most, if not all, aspects of adoption. A few are: what to consider before you adopt, adopting and parenting a child with special needs, understanding attachment and the impact of trauma, how to communicate about adoption from infancy through adolescence, and searching for birthparents.

They discuss positive word choices and negative family responses. And this revised version explores more thoroughly the aspects of international adoption and transcultural adoption in response to the adoption boom in those areas.

I found this book to be highly informative if not a little dry. It is fact filled, and when discussing so many different aspects of the adoption process, there probably wasn’t much room for feel-good fluff–though it did seem to focus on the problems one encounters when adopting. Again, good information to have, but it occasionally left me panicky. It might very well scare off people just beginning to explore the idea of adopting.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that though this book is all encompassing, it is by no means a one stop adoption resource. Those looking into domestic infant adoption or foster adoption or international adoption will want to also look for resources that cover those specific aspects more in depth. Why? Because sometimes we adoptive parents also want the beautiful warm fuzzies.

Armchair Interviews says: Excellent resource, but be aware, it is mostly about the possible problems, none of the joys and successes of adoption.