LifeBooks : Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child

As an adoptive mother to be, I found this book enlightening. It's easy to read, informative and gives simple ideas for creating a life book. It's been a great find and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's thinking about adopting too. If you manage to read it prior to your adoptive child arriving home, you'll get lots of useful hints on what to look out for while you're still in the adoption process.

This book has been in print for a while, and I hope the author comes out with a 2nd edition, because it is a wonderful, wonderful book, full of helpful practical information about making a lifebook. And a lifebook is an important thing for an adopted person! I'm only just beginning to understand its importance.

I made a lifebook for my daughter 3 years ago. After it was read a few times it sat on the shelf, ignored. But this year, in 2nd grade, when she was asked to bring the 5 most important things to class that say something about who she is, the lifebook was one of them. You just never know.

I was disappointed when I was 20 pages or so into the book because it was not nearly what I had hoped for. It is a bit disorganized and feels more like a handout at a class, than a professional book. It also seems to be outdated in terms of some of the ideas (scrapbooking and film photos)and there are also some errors in the references and links. If it were cheaper I wouldn't have minded so much! But I also realized that I have been volunteering in adoption education for many years, and have many friends, virtual and IRL, who have adopted who have helped me with most of the issues this book addresses. However, if I had not had so much exposure to it I would have found the ideas in the book more enlightening. Basically, it's a fundamental idea for adopted children and if you do not have a large support base (helpful CW's, friends with experience, etc) this book will be extremely useful to you. If you are more experienced you might want to borrow it from a friend or the library if you can find it.

This is a must do for anyone who is adopting, it was easy and full of great ideas. Thank you

Review by Sherry North, Author, Because You Are My Baby

We are in the process of adopting a child from Kazakhstan, so I bought this book to help us collect information and memories for making a lifebook. While the text is a bit haphazard- information is often repeated and the topics seem to jump around - I would still recommend the book. It has given me a new perspective on how to talk to our child's caregivers and which tidbits of information or mementos to look for while we are in Kazakhstan. It also has sample lifebook pages, which will be a wonderful guide when I sit down with our child to make her lifebook.