by Jacob Wheeler ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2011
Wheeler ably captures "the trauma and complexity of the Guatemalan adoption journey."
A journalistic account of the debate over Guatemalan adoption practices that morphs into a touching narrative of two families separated by culture but drawn together by the bonds of family.
In his debut, Glen Arbor Sun publisher Wheeler examines both sides of the adoption issue. He writes that until 2008, Guatemala was “the largest source for relinquishing its offspring in the entire world.” Before that, when controls were instituted by the Guatemalan government, unscrupulous private adoptions offered a significant source of revenue for lawyers and judges who preyed upon the poverty and vulnerability of mothers. But for the more than 4,700 Guatemalan children adopted by Americans in 2007, they offered the possibility of a “wonderful journey from rags to riches,” and opportunities that they could never otherwise experience. When he contemplated writing the book, Wheeler anticipated a chronicle of the experiences of birth mothers forced to give up their children and the adoptive parents who welcomed them. Eventually, however, the author became an important part of the story. Though he conducted in-depth interviews with families, he chose to focus on the Barrett family and their adoptive daughter Ellie, who was abandoned at age seven. The opportunity to piece together her early memories with the scanty paperwork given to the Barretts allowed Wheeler to investigate the dark side of the adoption industry while minimizing his own personal risk. The culmination of the story is the touching reunion between 14-year-old Ellie and her birth family as she faced the pull between her two conflicting identities.
Wheeler ably captures "the trauma and complexity of the Guatemalan adoption journey."Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8032-3362-1
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
Share your opinion of this book
by Bari Weiss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
by Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 1974
Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
Share your opinion of this book
More by Bob Woodward
BOOK REVIEW
by Bob Woodward & Robert Costa
BOOK REVIEW
by Bob Woodward
BOOK REVIEW
by Bob Woodward
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.