This book is a compilation of articles published in various newsletters of FCC groups in North America and the UK. It is a collection of such quality and breadth that each article leaves its local origins behind like the shuttle leaving its launch pad. The assembly of these articles neatly defines the process of synergy, the combination greatly exceeds the sum of the parts.
The book is organized along the time course of the adoption process. The early articles deal with the waiting period and other aspects of the pre-adoption process, it then moves into travel and getting settled into family life. The focus then expands into an outstanding section on health and development issues, adopting an older child, and single parenting. This is followed by outside perspectives on our experience, sections on culture, racial issues, going back to China and finishes with an excellent section on adoption and birth parents and how some families have handled this issue.
As the proud dad to a young lady from China, this book has many articles in the early sections that sounded very similar to our experiences. The later sections provide valuable trail markers for those portions of the journey that we have yet to travel. In my alter ego as the current custodian of the FCC web site this book is frustrating. On one hand I would like to simply post the entire opus on the web site, but on the other hand I think that every China adoptive family should buy the book. I will have to find some balance of posting enough of the articles to provide information not otherwise found on the site but still leaving people with a strong incentive to spend their cash on this excellent book.
I would especially recommend this book to any family considering adopting a child from China. The writers are the ones who have been down that trail and point out both the incredible rewards that these children bring into our lives and some of the very real problems that can beset the process. The value of these voices of experience to the prospective adoptive family can hardly be overstated. Any adoption agency with a China program should have copies to lend out to families, however they may have a hard time getting them back.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this book to families in any and all stages of the China adoption process. As an additional benefit, a portion of the profits from this book will go to two charitable organizations that directly work to improve the lives of children in the orphanages in China.
Additional details, including information on how to order this book is at http://fwcc.org/SanFrancisco/passage.html
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