<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: More about foster care than adoption
Review: This book is a "middle ground" story about adoption, neither sugar-coated nor horrific. It is the true account of a couple who, while waiting to adopt a baby, agreed to take in a ten-year-old foster child. Their hope, even before she came to live with them, was that they would be able to adopt her. It took ten years before the law allowed them to do so. Rather than adoption, this book is more about long-term foster care and its effects on both foster/adoptive parents and foster children. In this case, the foster/adoptive parents struggled with their lack of control over decisions and conditions they saw as damaging to their foster daughter, Lee Ann; while Lee Ann, longing for the security of permanency, alternated between trying her best to please the Lindsays, so they wouldn't throw her out, and acting out her anger and frustration at remaining in limbo. If the Lindsays ever got involved in foster care reform, this book gives no indication that they did; it is entirely the story of one family's journey. I would have found the book more valuable had the author editorialized about her experience and "spoken" to policymakers and foster parents of today. The events of this story take place mainly in the 60's, and one wonders how much the foster care system may have changed since then. (Not enough.)
<< 1 >>
| 
