Review: The strangest adoption story I've ever read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 7, 2014
I've read many adoption stories, all involving an infant surrendered for adoption by the  parent(s) and later making contact  with the birth family. It's always interesting to read about family "dynamics" and how different families (both birth and adoptive) deal with this very emotional subject.In this book, the adoptee's parents were dead and he was given up by grandparents who could no longer afford to care for him.  Even more unusual, he was six years old at the time of the adoption, which separated him from his older brother.  That separation was a tragic loss for the older brother, whose grandson has recorded his story.  The brothers continued to have contact, but the adoptive parents were determined to pass the younger boy off as their biological son and even moved in order to promote this fiction.  The older brother continued to live with his grandparents and both families were part of London's close-knit Jewish community, so the "secret" was known to many.  The two brothers were further divided by the wide difference in their economic circumstances and opportunities.The author is not a professional writer, but the story is so compelling I had no trouble staying with it.  It's a book which sheds light on Jewish culture and on human nature in general.