Transracial Adoption
Featured Books
You Should Be Grateful
Angela Tucker’s book offers powerful insight into transracial adoption from the adoptee’s perspective. Blending valuable information with her own compelling personal story, she keeps readers engaged from start to finish. Honest, engaging, and deeply informative, this is both an important resource and a captivating read. Highly recommended.
More Great Books
Dim Sum, Bagels and Grits: A Sourcebook for Multicultural Families
This thoughtful sourcebook guides families through the complex identity questions in transracial and international adoption. As a Jewish mother of a Chinese daughter, Alperson blends personal and professional insight on blending cultures, confronting prejudice, and finding role models. Drawing on interviews with other families, she also provides extensive resources—books, toys, foods, heritage camps, and more—to help parents create a supportive, multicultural home. A valuable resource for adoptive families navigating culture and identity.
W.I.S.E. Up! Powerbook Created by the Center for Adoption Support and Education (CASE)
The W.I.S.E. Up Powerbook helps adopted and foster children learn to confidently handle questions about their story. Using the W.I.S.E. acronym—Walk away, say It’s private, Share something, or Educate others—the book presents realistic scenarios and strategies kids can choose from. Ideal as a read-aloud for early elementary and later as a self-guided resource, it empowers children to respond on their own terms while giving parents a tool to spark important conversations.
Inside Transracial Adoption
Inside Transracial Adoption is a classic guide for parents raising children of a different race or culture. Emphasizing that race and adoption both matter, the book offers real-life examples and concrete strategies to help families thrive. Designed as a lifelong resource for adoptive parents, it provides insight into the unique challenges of transracial adoption—particularly for white parents adopting African American children domestically—while offering practical tools to build understanding, resilience, and connection across differences.
Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib
In this powerful memoir, Dr. John—New Mexico’s first Black child adopted by a white family—shares his experience of being deeply loved yet growing up in an overwhelmingly white community. He reflects on the confusion and struggles of belonging while navigating race, identity, and family. Ultimately, through love and resilience, he pieces together his past and future in a story of hope and healing.
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
In Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama offers an honest account of growing up as a Black child in a white family. Though of mixed race, he was perceived as Black and had to navigate identity and belonging in America. Supported by the love of his mother and grandparents, he reflects on both struggles and resilience. Written before his political career, this memoir provides valuable insight for white parents into the perspective of a Black child raised in a white family.
Beyond Good Intentions: A Mother Reflects on Raising Internationally Adopted Children
This essay collection explores ten common pitfalls that well-meaning adoptive parents may encounter, from dismissing a child’s past to believing race doesn’t matter or appropriating heritage. With honesty and insight, it addresses the complex realities transracial and international adoptive families face, offering guidance to navigate these challenges with greater awareness and care.
In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption
This book is an excellent starting point for parents in transracial adoption, especially white parents raising Black children. Roorda offers a clear overview of the history of transracial adoption in the U.S. and includes a practical appendix filled with tips for raising children across racial lines. Insightful and accessible, it helps parents better understand what it means to be Black in America and provides guidance for building awareness, confidence, and cultural competence. A must-have for any transracial adoptive family’s bookshelf.
In Their Own Voices, In Their Parents’ Voices, and In Their Siblings’ Voices
This trio of books explores transracial adoption from three perspectives—adoptees, parents, and siblings. In Their Own Voices shares interviews with young adult adoptees reflecting on identity, relationships, and lifestyle. In Their Parents’ Voices captures the insights of parents from the first wave of transracial adoptions, highlighting lessons learned. In Their Siblings’ Voices features white siblings describing their experiences growing up alongside Black or biracial brothers and sisters. Together, these collections offer a rare, multifaceted look at multiracial adoption.
Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
This anthology of essays, fiction, poetry, and art presents a stark, often painful view of transracial adoption from the perspective of adult adoptees. While difficult to read, it challenges the rose-tinted narratives many adoptive parents hold and underscores the importance of hearing directly from those with lived experience. Though not meant to be representative of all voices, the collection offers vital insights into the complexities and darker realities of transracial adoption.
A Euro-American on a Korean Tour at a Thai Restaurant in China
This honest memoir follows one mother’s journey to bridge her two transracially, internationally adopted children with their birth culture. While not solely a parenting or transracial adoption book, its powerful chapter on race makes it a standout. Winston shares the challenges and triumphs of creating a truly dual-culture family—going far beyond culture camps or cooking lessons—and ultimately founded the Korean Adoptee/Adoptive Network. A thoughtful, inspiring read for parents seeking a deeper cultural connection for their children.
What About the Children?: Five Values for Multiracial Families
In What About the Children?, Nicole Doyley draws on her own biracial upbringing and her experience raising two Black sons with her Jamaican husband. Blending personal insight with practical guidance, she offers reflection questions, action steps, and five core values to help multiracial families thrive. Featuring examples from diverse family makeups, this book addresses both the basics and the nuances of nurturing pride in heritage and building a strong, resilient sense of identity in children.
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