This book contains information about the negative effects of adoption on adoptees -- the children adoption is supposed to save. If you can get past the confusing pro-adoption bias of the authors, you can use this book to learn about the negatives of adoption for adopted people.

This is my favorite book about adoption so far. As a mother, I was able to read this book without wincing once. It deals with the issues a mother faces with the loss of her child to adoption in a most gentle manner. I highly recommend it.

The year was 1954. Eisenhower was president, Elvis had just cut his first record, the civil rights movement was getting started and I was a young teenager giving birth to a baby "out of wedlock." In this book, I describe what it was like to be in this tenuous situation during the 50's, the tremendous peer pressure, the expectations of society and the pain of having to "surrender" my first-born child. 22 years later, in 1976, I decide to search for her and share those very exciting and special moments as each new piece of information is uncovered. The book's title came from my deep longing to one day be reunited with my precious daughter and I always knew that I WOULD HAVE SEARCHED FOREVER!

Sandy Musser was sent to prison! The largest lobbying group in the country who are working to keep their adoption records from adoptees, called her a vigilante and a terrorist! Sandy was indicted by the Federal Government and sent to prison for her work of REUNITING FAMILIES! The Government called it a "conspiracy to defraud the government of confidential information." This is a sobering account of our government's flagrant abuse of power. It is a story of sting operations, government lies, taped phone conversations, and coercion that turns friends against friends. George Orwell's “1984” could never have predicted a system as corrupt as the one that sent this non-violent grandmother to federal prison. This time it was Sandy Musser. Who will be next? You?" Sandy Musser was sent to federal prison for the crime of reuniting families.

Three miners find an infant, female humanoid in an escape pod floating in space near the asteroid where they’re working. They raise her, lovingly, as their ward. Her guardians make no attempt to convince her they are her parents. Neither do they attempt to find a male/female pair to pose as her parents. Their relationships are healthy – based on truth and honesty. A corrupt mining company attempts to keep them tied up in court until their finances are depleted in order to get the girl with remarkable, inherent abilities away from them. Among their adventures the four get involved with The Child Liberation League efforts to free enslaved orphans -- not one at a time by trying to find parent substitutes for them, but on a larger scale educating them and establishing a mining operation on three moons orbiting the plant on which they’re enslaved. The hope is that they can become independent working in the mines for real wages and one day inherit the mining company as their own. Obstacles to helping the orphans include wealthy families, governmental bureaucracies, and difficulty locating the orphans. There are lots of adoption issues here to explore. I’m sure this book is as well written and entertaining as its sequel.

Acorna wonders where she belongs? Not knowing her origins she has no way of guessing the potentials inherent in her body. She’s reluctant to commit to her human love interest without knowing where she comes from; he doesn’t understand why she can’t be happy remaining ignorant of her own kind. To search for her lost home world is a primary concern of Acorna’s. She needs to find her “own people” in order to feel content anywhere. The adoption issues are obvious. I recommend this book for exploring those issues and for pure entertainment, as well.

A very good book to use for exploring adoption issues -- not just from a mother's perspective but from a female perspective. Women are so much more than our ability (or lack of ability) to reproduce. It is significant that the author chose to explore the devaluation of women in society within the context of one woman being used for breeding and another woman's willingness take a mother's child from her and pretend that child is her own. It's an excellent book!

Unfortunately weak exploration of adoption in this material that is so well suited for it. People so desperate for a child that they'll buy a monkey with a human face and PRETEND it's THEIR child is a powerful statement about adopters. Children as a commodity is unexplored despite the extravagent prices of children in this future world compared to the already high prices paid for children in our own world today. A woman completely losing control of her mental faculties then being "saved" from that dementia by the possession of the infant of another woman -- is accepted as natural. Worst of all, the torsos of murdered pregnant women kept alive for breeding purposes, as you read, remember that these things are all far worse than having some of your cells stolen to make faces for monkeys.

This is the original manuscript with approximately 60,000 more words than previously published. It was written in 1961, so there is some very annoying sexism. Heinlein seems to completely ignore the powerful influence of genetics on who we are, but then so does adoption. There is ample opportunity to explore adoption issues in this story of a boy raised by Martians and reunited with his own kind – human beings. Adoptees in particular may empathize with his search for an integrated identity.