Darron T. Smith is a frequent commentator on issues of race, including a New York Times post on transracial adoption and Haiti. He is assistant professor at Wichita State University and the coeditor of the book Black and Mormon. Cardell K. Jacobson is Karl G. Maeser Professor at Brigham Young University and the author or editor of several books, including Statistical Handbook on Racial Groups in the United States. Brenda G. Juárez is assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, specializing in social justice education.

• Foreword by Joe R. FeaginAcknowledgmentsChapter 1: Transracial Adoption: Considering Family, Home, and Love, and the Paradoxes of Race MattersChapter 2: Contextualizng Transracial Adoption: Demographic Trends, Introducing the Families Chapter 3: Transracial Adoption, White Racial Knowledge, and the Trouble with “Love is Enough” Chapter 4: Research on Transracial Adoption: What Do We Know? Chapter 5: Cross-Cultural Race Pioneers: White Adoptive Parents Learning and Not Learning about RaceChapter 6: White Parents Teaching Black Children about RaceChapter 7: Addressing Race with Your Children: Practical Advice for White Adoptive ParentsAppendix A: A Note about Our Methods and MethodologyAppendix B: Transracial Adoption in the 2000 Census and the National Survey of Adoptive Paernts (2007)NotesReferencesIndexAbout the Authors

This book furthers understanding of the essential elements underlying the question plaguing adoption services for years: does race matter? In their illuminating work, Smith (Wichita State Univ.), Jacobson (Brigham Young Univ.), and Juárez (Univ. of Massachusetts) present the findings of their systematic investigation of the experiences and perspectives of white adoptive parents and their African American children. Dramatic growth in the numbers of transracial adoptions spurred them to ask how damaging the perils are of growing up a black child in a white family, living in a socially unjust world. Their conclusions seem to be that while most white adoptive parents love their black children and do what they feel to be in the children's best interests, the experience is developmentally damaging in salient and irreversible ways, leaving the children ill equipped to deal with the micro-aggressions they face daily living in a racist society. . . . This is an important read for all parents, practitioners, and pundits in the field. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries.