As the book Gray’s Anatomy is to doctors and Black’s Law Dictionary is to the legal field, Arleta James’ Brothers and Sisters in Adoption will be to foster and adoptive parents and child welfare professionals”

from a review by Regina Kupecky

Arleta James, MS, PCC, a therapist with the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio, has become well known on the speaking circuit for her expertise in working with adoption-expanded families. Now she shares in one very big (7×10), very fat (544 pages) book what she has learned about integrating children who arrive beyond the newborn stage and with complicated histories  into families which already contain kids born into them or adopted by them who are developing predictably and “normally.”

From years of working with families who have adopted domestically and internationally, Arleta has developed practical tools for assisting placement professionals in preparing and supporting families, and for parents, already-resident children and the older-adopted children who join them to use in accepting one-another’s unfamiliar behavior and culture and merging them, ultimately helping those new kids heal, so that the family can forge strong connections and attachments to one another. Brothers and Sisters in Adoption uses some of the material in Arleta’s multi-media curriculum “Brothers and Sisters” and much,  much more.

Indeed, as we prepared to send the book to the typesetter (Fall, 2008) we sent the final draft to several experts in the field for comment. We were surprised to find that nearly all of them (see “reviews,” at left) told us that the book is so comprehensive that they feared the tightly focused title (Brothers and Sisters in Adoption) would steer some pre-adopting families and professionals who should read it if only to learn much much more about complex trauma, away!

We’re very excited about bringing this one to you. It carries an April 15, 2009 publication date.

Brothers and Sisters in Adoption is now available in Kindle ebook reader format on Amazon.com and in nearly all other ebook formats on Smashwords.com. Buy that through our ebook page on the  button bar above.

Adopting is a 2010 Mom’s Choice Awards® Gold Recipient in adult books in Adoption, and
Winner of the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Award as best new book in the Self Help genre!

Is Adoption the Right Option for Your Family?
Get the answers and information you need in this new resource from Perspectives Press!

Feeling “family-challenged”?

If you’ve been struggling with infertility issues, are a single person or a partner in a same-sex family, chances are adoption has come up in your thinking about a means of building your family. Perhaps you’ve thought a little, perhaps a lot. Ultimately, the key question that you need to answer is both simple and complex:

Is the adoption option right for you and your family?

Important questions about the steps to take–or not–toward building or adding to your family deserve informative and compassionate answers, and that’s precisely what you’ll find in this latest adoption guide from renowned authority and educator Patricia Irwin Johnston, MS.

Adopting: Sound Choices Strong Families offers expert guidance, insight and key understanding about adoption as a genuine, practical means for growing a family–perhaps even yours.

Written to help prospective adoptive parents like you make smarter, more thoughtful decisions about adopting a child, this guide will challenge you and move you step-by-step through the process of adoption through the lens of the deeply personal and emotional obstacles everyone feels during this decision-making process.

Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families is not a “how-to” guide to finding an adoption agency or managing the paper trail.

The author, wife of an adopted person and parent herself to three children who joined the Johnston family through adoption, poses and then helps you address the difficult questions that must be examined before you can make any realistic decisions about adoption, including how to

• Regain a sense of control over your life
• Decide whether you’re genuinely open to the idea of adoption
• Understand the central issues of attachment and adoptive family life
• Feel confident in your decision to pursue–or not–adoption as a viable option
• Make informed decisions about the details of the adoption process
• Embrace your decision to adopt with practical support and information
• Navigate the first months after placement with realistic expectation and information
• Move forward into adoptive family life prepared to address challenges and find resources for yourself and your child.

You won’t find any sugary, sentimental or rose-colored views here!

Built on the foundation of two earlier books, Adopting after Infertility and Launching a Baby’s Adoption, Adopting Sound Choices, Strong Families offers many tools, vignettes, Q&A, as well as the frank and honest commentary for which Johnston is well known. She tells it to you “how it’s been, like it is, and how it’s likely to be” from someone who’s been there, done that for nearly 30 years as a leading member of the adoption community.

• Click on the links at the left for the Table of Contents, Advance Reviews, and the entire contents of Chapter 1.

Whether you come to this resource with enthusiasm, ambivalence, or even strong reluctance, it’s by tackling the touch and personal questions upfront that you will be prepared to make the very best decisions possible as you embark–or not–on the journey to family-building through adoption.

Make Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families a first step in that journey. Order your copy today!

Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families  is now available in Kindle ebook reader format on Amazon.com and in nearly all other ebook formats on Smashwords.com. Buy that through our ebook page on the  button bar above.

Named to Library Journal‘s list of best consumer health books of 2005 (May 1, 2006)!

Library Journal Starred Review, April 15, 2005 …Glazer and Sterling discuss in depth finding and selecting a donor and egg donor programs; case studies provide a personal view of how couples and individuals make the decision. Ethical, legal, economic, and religious considerations, including the roles of lawyers and mental health counselors,are addressed in detail. Also well covered are tips on how to share this information with the family and talk with children born through egg donation. A list of resources and references rounds out the text. This excellent resource is highly recommended.

Women who have lost ovarian function or whose eggs are not of good quality and those who are carriers of genetic disorders can experience pregnancy, birth and parenthood with the use of donated oocytes; but coming to this decision is not an easy process

Having Your Baby through Egg Donation answers questions about age and pregnancy and parenting, about talking to children about their donor conception, about ethical and religious questions, about honesty vs secrecy, about communicating with a parenting partner, and more in a compassionate, fully informed manner. Vignettes describing the decision making and experience of others who have traveled this road to parenthood expand and exemplify research and philosophical resources.

Having Your Baby Through Egg Donation helps individuals and couples, including those with special circumstances (e.g. gay and lesbian, single women, multi-ethnic families) decide whether egg donation is right for them. It addresses such questions as: “Should we choose adoption or egg donation?” and “Should I ask a my sister to donate and if so, how do I raise the subject with her?” and “How do I evaluate a recruited-donor program?” Ethical and religious questions are explored as well as the logistics of finding a donor, attempting pregnancy, history and future directions and much, much more.

Ellen Sarasohn Glazer and Evelina Weidman Sterling provide both compassionate support and essential information about how to pursue pregnancy and parenthood through egg donation in this comprehensive tool.

Read all of this book’s reviews by clicking the review link in the left column

Having Your Baby through Egg Donation is now available in Kindle ebook reader format on Amazon.com and in nearly all other ebook formats on Smashwords.com. Buy that through our ebook page on the  button bar above.

Adoptive Families magazine, in their August, 2008 issue, has listed Borya and the Burps as one of eight “must have” picture books for young children!Just for fun, Publisher’s Weekly’s Editors, in compiling their 2/21/2005 Children’s Book Announcements issue, offered ten tongue-in-cheek awards as “Silly Salutations of the Season”. And a winner is… Title Most Apt to Encourage Less-Than-Silent Activity at the Dinner Table: Borya and the Burps: An Eastern European Adoption Story by Jane McNamara, illus. by Dawn Majewski, the story of baby boy with a talent for making magnificent burps. (Perspectives Press)We got a chuckle out of this. Hope you do!

In recent years more children have been adopted from Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Bloc countries than from any other region of the world. Yet until now, there have been no picture books designed to tell their stories of finding a forever family through adoption.

Long time social worker Joan McNamara has ably filled that gap with a new children’s book that acknowledges the sense of security and comfort that many children have with the “familiar” in their daily life in an orphanage compared to the unknowns of a new adoptive family. This delightful book gently illustrates some of the confusion children feel when they are removed from the multiple caretakers and groups of children whom they know within their (often deprived) orphanages and are moved into a loving but unfamiliar new family with a sensory-enriched (but possibly overwhelming) home environment. With their whole world turned upside down, children are still able to struggle to make sense of these changes and ultimately blossom within a new family, with a parent or parents who will be theirs forever.

Although Borya and the Burps! is one of the very first books on international adoption from Eastern Europe to be widely available to families, families who have adopted from other regions of the world may find this story valuable as well. Simple comments from parents while reading about what was the same and what was different for their child can personalize this story. Adoption of children from orphanage care does share some common themes and situations in all parts of the world, and thus parents can share this story with their children irregardless of where their child’s orphanage was or will be located.

A good introduction for young, recently arrived children, this unique book will also become an often-used conversation starter for slightly older children ready to talk about their prior lives, their prior caretakers and companions, and what adoption has meant in their young lives.

Borya and the Burps! fills a big hole for families who adopt from Eastern Europe.

Click here to see the entire book on line

It’s hard to believe, but today over 65% of women planning an adoption are already parenting at least one child.

Until now, there have been no tools to help these mothers explain adoption to their older children. Sam’s Sister will change all that. It follows six-year-old Rosa as she comes to understand her mother’s dilemma, learns about adoption, experiences his birth and placement with Sarah and Joe. The illustrations of Dawn Majewski bring these characters to life.

Click here to see the entire book on line

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) (also correctly called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) is a complex, broad- spectrum hormonal disturbance affecting the entire body with numerous implications for a woman’s long-term health and quality of life. PCOS is the most common hormonal disturbance of pre-menopausal women and is a leading cause of infertility, but infertility is not the only problem PCOS creates. Common symptoms unrelated to fertility include obesity, abnormal hair growth, skin problems, and abnormal menstrual periods. Additionally, we now know that PCOS has far longer-term health consequences. Women with PCOS have at least 7 times the risk of heart attack and heart disease than other women, are at risk for hypertension, and by the age of 40, 40% of PCOS patients develop Type 2 diabetes. Because often individual symptoms of the syndrome have been presented one at a time to a variety of professionals (gynecologists, dermatologists, internists, hair removal specialists) PCOS has been in the closet for far too long, underestimated both in prevalence and importance. The disease is beginning to receive the attention it deserves through interest and research. Even popular women’s magazines
including Cosmopolitan, Elle, Redbook and Ladies Home Journal have recently published articles on PCOS. There are hundreds of visitors each day to sites on the internet dedicated to PCOS. Yet there has been no comprehensive source of information available to PCOS sufferers� until now. Dr. Thatcher�s book is an exciting first in this field!

The first-ever look at the unique challenges of parenting a child who arrives in his forever family older than infancy but younger than kindergarten age, this helpful guide makes clear the difficulties cause by cognitive and emotional immaturity which make traditional “talk” therapy and preparation nearly useless, and offers support and practical tools for transitioning and promoting attachment

For over ten years, children’s developmental specialist and adoptive parent of a toddler Dr. Mary Hopkins-Best’s book has been the go-to source for those adopting children 12 months and up both internationally and from the US foster care system.

Toddler Adoption is now available in Kindle ebook reader format on Amazon.com and in nearly all other ebook formats on Smashwords.com. Buy that through our ebook page on the  button bar above..

This simple 32 page booklet offers family members, friends, and co-workers of an infertile couple the opportunity to learn what they need to know in order to be supportive and offer compassionate assistance and to avoid making insensitive and inaccurate comments and offering myth-driven advice. “Just relax, you’re probably trying too hard”????? Give us a break!!

New and Notable! Understanding Infertility‘s author, Pat Johnston, served as the adoption coordinator and consultant on Healthvue’s new DVD set �Infertility Explained: The Complete, Authoritative Guide to Everything You Need to Know on Your Journey to Parenthood� as a two-disc DVD production providing an authoritative resource for over six-million clinically infertile couples of child-bearing age in the United States, helping them to make informed choices and achieve greater confidence in their decisions made in consultation with healthcare practitioners. to learn more about this audo-visual resource Click here

For a limited time we still have available several dozen copies in our Bargain Bin of slightly scuffed books. When they are gone, Sweet Grapes will be available only as an ebook. The price at left ($6.00)  is less than half the original list price of $13.00.

Hurry and get yours while supplies last!

A discussion of communication and decision making that empowers couples to take back control of their lives, this book was also the first to consider at length the positive option of childfree living after infertility!

Jean Carter is herself an ob/gyn, delivering other people’s babies! Mike is a college English professor. Together they figured out a way to pull themselves out of the pit of infertility, re-evaluate, and embrace a joy-filled life without children. They share that communication method, and their reasoning and resources, with other infertile couples who are feeling “out of options” in Sweet Grapes

Over the years, though, our infertile couple clients have often asked about the staying power of the Carters’ decision. Do they have regrets? Aren’t they sorry that they didn’t adopt or go into more high tech treatment? They updated the book ten years after their original edition, 15 years into living childfree. You’ll find wisdom and support in their answers!

Click on REVIEWS  in left column to read what others have written about this very special book.

Winner of the 1990 Benjamin Franklin Award as best  Self Help book of the year!

Winner of the Pact Praise Award (Pact: An Adoption Alliance) for outstanding parenting skills book of the year.

“Children think differently from adults concerning sex and birth,” reads the 9/1/94 review in Library Journal. “Page after page of enlightening interviews take us deep into the minds of children 3-12 years old…This understanding of child development will help adults communicate better with children about the origin of families as well as the origin of babies.”

Other reviews can be read in just a click from the left column.

The original 1978 version of Flight of the Stork published by Delacorte was adapted from her doctoral study. I (Pat Johnston, PPInc’s publisher) stumbled upon that book when my oldest son was a toddler and was immediately engrossed in it. I gave copies to many friends over the years and was disappointed when it went out of print. In 1994 I was able to make contact with Anne through Dr. David Brodzinsky, and I coaxed her into revising the book–expanding it  with special sections for families with special challenges in how their family was formed–through stepparenting, through adoption, through collaborative reproduction, as single parents, etc. She agreed, did more research and interviews, and the result was an all new Flight of the Stork: What Children Think (and When) about Sex and Family Building. I continue to give it as a gift to parents, only now its an entirely new generation of them.  Additionally, our customers confirm that this has been a perfect gift for any and all of the parents they know, not to mention teachers! 

Flight of the Stork is now available in Kindle ebook reader format on Amazon.com and in nearly all other ebook formats on Smashwords.com. Buy that through our ebook page on the  button bar above.