Ann Morris is a freelance journalist, living in London. Adoption UK is the leading charity providing support, awareness and understanding for those parenting or supporting children who cannot live with their birth parents.

• 1. You want to adopt. 2. First meetings, first months, falling in love - good times, bad times, bonding. 3. Adopting babies and toddlers. 4. Adopting schoolchildren. 5. Taking on an adolescent. 6. Adopting children with a physical or mental disability. 7. Adopting a physically or sexually abused child. 8. Unusual adopters - single parents, unmarried couples, homosexuals, adoption over birth choice. 9. Adoption and race. 10. Openness in adoption. 11. Attached or unattached, the ongoing problem. 12. The nightmare - when an adoption breaks down. 13. Telling and talking. 14. Tracing. 15. The birth mother's story. 16. What adoptees say. Appendix 1. Legal issues. 2. Index of organisations.

Would that there had been such a book when our sons were little, especially when we added a seven year old with emotional and behavioral difficulties to the family. I hope that everyone involved in adoption will be aware of the existence of this book, since it covers the actual experience of adoption form every aspect... Those who have contributed to this rich collection of personal experiences have been generous in sharing their hopes and fears: the good moments and the moments of utter despair and even failure... Like any book that is a compendium of writings, it would be easy to imagine that people, for whom adoption was a painful experience, would not have a voice here. This might be true to some extent but there are accounts of adoptions that failed, and times when tracing a birth-parent did not bring complete happiness. There are stories that might have been painful to write but can shed light on what it means to be an aopder or an adoptee, such as the story of the family whose badly damaged son suddenly seemed to thrive, and went on to become a successful business and family man, only to committ suicide at 27. This book should be required reading for all social workers, teachers, would be adopters, adopters and their doctors. For years adoption was a family secret for the birth-mother and the adopters. Now we are passed that stage it is important that the stories be heard.