Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion for Adoptees, Birthparents,and Adoptive...
An adoptee offers compassionate and comprehensive guidance to locating "adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents." Strauss proceeds from the view that seeking reunion with relatives estranged by adoption is a good thing, and she marshals impressive reasoning and evidence to support her case. She discusses the laws that make adoption records confidential in the introduction and thereby sets the stage for the search strategies that follow. As Strauss points out, the history of adoption is neither simple nor consistent, and the nature of adoption today is very different from what it was when present adoption laws were enacted. The more a searcher understands the nature of adoption practices and laws, she says, the more likely his or her search is to succeed. Strauss interweaves the story of the search for her own birthparents with the strategies for finding birth relatives, and whether or not one agrees with the practice of adoptees or birthparents initiating searches for lost relatives, she tells that personal story compellingly. Thus, Strauss' effort offers considerable insight into the motivations of a particular adoptee as it encourages and counsels others wishing to undertake such a search themselves.Mike Tribby