February, 2009
Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell; Simon and Schuster; 2005
Since 1998, Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York City, have been a couple. Penguin couples can generally only care for one egg at a time, so in 2000, when another penguin couple laid two eggs, Roy Gramzay, their keeper, gave that egg–and Roy and Silo–a chance to be a family.
In this wonderful true story about the love it takes to be a family, Roy and Silo watch the other penguins build a nest and hatch an egg, then do the same with the egg Mr. Gramzay brought to them. They take turns caring for the egg and one day it hatches. Mr. Gramzay named the baby Tango, “because it takes two to make a Tango.” Tango is the first penguin at the zoo to have two daddies. Roy and Silo taught Tango how to sing when she was hungry, how to swim, and how to snuggle at bedtime, just like all the other penguin families. Roy, Silo, and Tango still live together at the zoo today.
And Tango Makes Three is aimed at pre-schoolers to grade 3, but readers young and old will enjoy this heart-warming story about family bonds, and the dedication and determination Roy and Silo exhibit during their quest to raise a family. This story will help introduce children to the different ways families are created.
-Amy Drew
Barbara Katz Rothman; Beacon Press; 2005
In an almost conversational writing style, the author relates her own process of becoming more “racially aware” as a member of a transracial family. The author, a white Jewish sociologist, is the mother of two children by birth and has a much younger adopted daughter who is African-American. Katz Rothman lives with her Jewish husband and their youngest daughter in a predominantly black neighborhood in New York City. Across the topics examined, the history of black-white race relations in the United States—namely slavery—is the lens through which present day racial identity and cultural values are considered. Highlighting this important social-historical dynamic provides the context for a discussion of how institutionalized racism has accumulated power over time and become the legacy of many generations, across racial groups.
The author’s training as an academic researcher informs the meticulous collection of social history that went into this book. It is organized into three big chunks along the themes of genetics, politics, and culture. However, equal emphasis is given to narrative from the author’s own experience, keeping the material approachable. Katz Rothman uses humor and personal stories to make her own self-reflection available for reader consideration. She doesn’t claim to have answers to some of the big questions she puts forward—for example: Is transracial adoption by the dominant racial group a form of genocide? For some readers, the author’s repeating cycle of posing a question, sifting through history and self-inquiry to develop a reasoned theory, and then contradicting her own ideas with yet another perspective may prove maddening. The point, though, seems to be that there are no easy answers in the debate on transracial adoption issues. All perspectives count.
In efforts to highlight the common ground between opponents and advocates of transracial adoption, Katz Rothman presents the notion that childrearing should be considered a communal responsibility. The author describes her own activist approach to parenting as a powerful channel for counteracting racism in her community, describing a personal transformation of her own ideologies and sense of identity as the parent of a black child. And, again, she seems to contradict herself when she insists that we should not be “asking children to be the bridge” (p. 205) between still segregated communities of black families and white families.
To her credit, Katz Rothman does hold up her own white privilege for examination several times throughout the book. However, sandwiching a chapter on entitlement between those on identity and hair, she also makes the rather surprising claim that she sometimes feels like a white woman who is secretly black. She still appears to have a lot of sorting out to do. In the meantime, it seems brave to lay out all this confusion and processing of ugly cultural assumptions in an attempt to access what often goes unexamined.
I appreciated the quick read and the consideration of multiple perspectives, but would not agree that there was any “untangling” of the subject matter, as the title promises. Guess I still have some work to do. What sticks with me from the book is the author’s assertion that creating a transracial family is a logical place to do our own sorting out. Can we get there any other way?
-MereAnn Reid
Deborah D. Gray; 2007; Prospectives Press Inc
Deborah Gray may be the premier expert on attachment and adoption in this country. Whereas others have a command of the research on attachment and child development, Deborah Gray has the rare gift of being able to take up-to-date research and translate it into relevant, practical advice for everyday parents. For those of you who have read Deborah Gray’s first book, Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents, you will know what I mean by this. In both Attaching in Adoption and Nurturing Adoptions, Gray provides countless strategies and tools for parents that she has learned first-hand as a former foster parent and as a therapist. She often uses rich case examples to illustrate these tools, and this format makes it easier to translate the tools from the book to real life.
Some of the material in Nurturing Adoptions will be familiar to readers of Gray’s first book. Gray emphasizes the importance of attachment as the springboard and scaffolding for development in children. She explains how a child’s ability to trust her caregiver to take care of her during early childhood transcends all elements of subsequent development. This includes a child’s cognitive development, social development, moral development, and emotional/behavioral development. In Nurturing Adoptions, Gray integrates attachment literature with child trauma literature in her effort to explain how disrupted attachment and trauma such as abuse or neglect can have a cumulative effect on a child’s development. This has become increasingly relevant over the last decade as the face of adoption has changed. With more adoptions of children with histories of abuse, institutional care, or disrupted placements, there is a growing recognition of the impact of trauma, grief, and attachment on children. In spite of some of the daunting risk factors that many of these children carry, Gray leaves the reader feeling inspired. Just as she instructs parents and professionals to instill hope in children, Gray also gives adoptive parents hope. She does this by helping parents and professionals see the numerous opportunities available to help children in their healing.
Readers should be forewarned, Nurturing Adoptions is geared toward the target audience of adoption professionals. Some of the research reviewed in the first half of the book can be quite technical and dense for someone looking for an easy read. In the second half of the book, much of the treatment-focused material is intended for placement specialists, social workers, and psychologists. It is my hope that this forewarning does not deter the motivated parent from reading this book. For the parent who is not deterred by terminology such as glucocorticoids, Nurturing Adoptions equips the adoptive parent with vital information. In addition, the adoptive parents who read this book will have everything they need to know in order to keep an adoption professional on his or her toes. I recommend this book for parents who intend to seek psychiatric or psychological services for their child or family. I can assure you that you will close the book knowing the questions that you need to ask a mental health professional at the onset of treatment.
As a psychologist who specializes in adoption issues, I want to add that I am skeptical of many attachment-focused remedies. Historically, some attachment interventions have included coercive techniques such as forcing a child to be held. In addition, it has been my observation that adoption professionals are sometimes too quick to diagnose attachment-related disorders. I can assure the reader that the tools and techniques promoted by Gray are ethical, respectful to the child and family, and highly effective. That said, I would suggest Attaching in Adoption for the parent who prefers a no-nonsense, practical resource book on attachment, adoption, and parenting. I would suggest Nurturing Adoptions for Gray fans who want to read more, for professionals who are working with foster children and adopted children, and for savvy parents who are eager to understand and advocate for their children.
-Ally Burr-Harris
