"Adoption Mystique"is finalist for USA Book News 2007 National Books Award

Grannie Annie agrees! This is a wonderful book!

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November 2007

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The Adoption Mystique Award Winning Finalist In the USA Book News 2007 National Best Books Award

Kissimmee, Fl - November 2007 - On November 1, 2007, USABookNews.com, the premiere online magazine and review website for mainstream and independent publishing houses, announced the winners and finalist of the 2007 National Best Books Awards. Winners and finalists traversed the publishing landscape. They included publishing houses like Simon & Schuster, Penguin-Putnam, HarperCollins, Random House, and McGraw-Hill. Amongst the winners, The Adoption Mystique: A Hard-hitting Exposé of the Powerful Negative Social Stigma that Permeates Child Adoption in the United States was a finalist in the social change category.

Listed as recommended reading by The American Adoption Congress (AAC), The Adoption Mystique, written by Joanne Wolf Small, M. S. W., is a well researched book that questions and challenges the stigma that permeates the many readily accepted and rarely questioned social norms and myths that continue to support adoptee and adoptive family intolerance, and hinder efforts to make positive and healthy changes that would help to bring adoption policy and practice into the 21st century.

Midwest Book Review says, "The Adoption Mystique is not a general book about adoption, but rather a focused, politically-minded call for the civil rights of adoptees" as it "examines bias against adoptees in the media and society." Carrie Craft from About.com Adoption writes, "author Joanne Wolf Small, M.S.W. just doesn't break the adoption myth, she shatters it with her compilation of various research studies, essays, and personal knowledge on the subject of adoption...The Adoption Mystique is respectful and not at all anti-adoption, just pro-truth and openness." It is a useful proven resource for all whose lives have been touched by adoption.

"Your essays are so thoughtful - and so rich in conveying the historical context for adoption in general and the policies and practices surrounding information sharing, in particular, and in conveying the critical psychosocial issues that lie at the heart of adoption. I am certain that your book will be viewed as a critical resource for policy makers and practitioners seeking to better understand adoption." - Madelyn Freundlich, Senior Policy Analyst, and former Executive Director, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanne W. Small, M.S.W is an adopted adult, adoption rights activist, author, and psychotherapist. She was executive director of Adoptees in Search (AIS) and served as the first and only adopted person on the Model Adoption Legislative Procedures and Advisory Panel. Her 30 year professional experience includes a post-adoption clinical practice, clinical supervision, in-service training and seminars, lectures, publications, and interviews with over a thousand adoptive family members. Visit her website at http://www.jwsmall.com/.###


The Adoption Mystique: A Hard-hitting Exposé of the Powerful Negative Social Stigma that Permeates Child Adoption in the United States, Hardcover, $28.95, is available via Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram. To request a review copy please contact Reina Santana at rsantana@resmarketingalliance.com

AN ADOPTED WOMAN TALKS BACK

Adopted adults are fighting for the right to request and receive our original birth certificates with no conditions or falsifications. In a free society, states cannot hold on to their power to withhold our identity information from us. We are adopted men and women – not enemies of the state.

The state governments must get out of the search and reunion business. They must also get out of the business of gathering our medical information. If we wish, we can do all of these things on our own.

§ We are not asking for anyone in the government or private sector to help us find our first parents.

§ We are not asking for anyone in the government or private sector to plan or mediate reunions between us and any other person on this planet.

§ We are not asking for anyone in the government or private sector to secure medical information for us.

§ We are not asking for anyone in the government or private sector to tell us which relatives are okay and which are not okay to associate with.

The states should be and indeed they are in the ADOPTION business, because it is important to find permanent homes for children who need them. That’s good. But once we homeless children reach the age of majority, the states should wish us a good life and say goodbye. They really must stop interfering in our lives forever!

The only way to accomplish this change is for the legislatures to repeal the antiquated sealed records section of their laws. Then we adoptees will once again be free to access the records of our birth. That’s all we are asking.