Here are 100 books that No Matter What fans have personally recommended if you like
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I was adopted as a baby, so I have first-hand experience of the emotions and challenges this presents. I am passionate about shining light on this often misunderstood and complex family trauma through my writing. My memoir Blood and Blood, an emotive exploration of the search for my birth relatives, was shortlisted for the Mslexia Prize. My research extends to fiction and non-fiction, where the psychological effects of adoption are referenced or highlighted. I am always keen to chat with fellow care-experienced people. I hope you find the books on this list helpful.
One thing about being adopted is you have an in-built radar to seek out others who are too. I read Jeanette Winterson’s first novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit when I was a teenager, and since then, I have been in awe of her as a writer and her ability to eloquently describe her personal experience as an adoptee.
This book is her autobiography, and there were occasions while reading it that I had to stop and cry. Finally, someone else had written about what I had kept holed up inside me. Her final chapter, "The Wound," speaks so profoundly to me as an adopted adult. It is honest, sharp, and fierce.
The shocking, heart-breaking - and often very funny - true story behind Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It was Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful past written over and repainted. It was a story of survival.
This book is that story's the silent twin. It is full of hurt and humour and a fierce love of life. It is about the pursuit of happiness,…
When I was going through the process of adopting my second child, after having my first by a more conventional route, I looked for diverse representations of mothering to help me make sense of my journey. These recommended books helped me to understand the lived experience from all sides of the adoption triangle: adoptee, birth mother, and adopter. I was curious about the experience of other mothers whose children have an additional mother and found a lack of life writing on surrogacy and egg donation. As a published novelist and poet, I decided to move into experimental life writing and undertook a PhD in Creative Writing to discover and write their stories.
Carole Schaefer’s poignant memoir presents the story of a naïve, young, Catholic American woman falling pregnant outside of marriage and being pressured to give up her baby for adoption in 1965 at age nineteen. The book charts an eighteen-year journey to tracing and meeting her birth son.
The book’s unusual vantage point makes for compelling reading, offering insight into an experience seldom written about.
In 1965, Carol Schaefer was 19, a freshman in college and deeply in love. She was also pregnant. When her boyfriend’s family opposed their marrying, her parents sequestered her in a Catholic home for unwed mothers a state away, where she was isolated and where secrecy prevailed. She had only to give up her baby for her sin to be forgiven and then all would soon be forgotten she was told. The child, in turn, would be placed with a “good” family, instead of having his life ruined by the stigma of illegitimacy. Carol tried to find the strength to…
When I was going through the process of adopting my second child, after having my first by a more conventional route, I looked for diverse representations of mothering to help me make sense of my journey. These recommended books helped me to understand the lived experience from all sides of the adoption triangle: adoptee, birth mother, and adopter. I was curious about the experience of other mothers whose children have an additional mother and found a lack of life writing on surrogacy and egg donation. As a published novelist and poet, I decided to move into experimental life writing and undertook a PhD in Creative Writing to discover and write their stories.
Carrie Etter’s haunting poetry collection presents the imaginings of a birth mother who gave up her child for adoption when she was seventeen, exploring the many diverse visions she has of her son as an adult. The poet sees her son everywhere: in the supermarket, on the train, in the park.
This is a profoundly affecting collection that I could not put down.
"In Imagined Sons Carrie Etter reflects on the experience of a birthmother who gave up her son when she was seventeen. In a series of haunting, psalm-like prose poems of enormous courage and insight, she describes possible encounters with this son now in his late teens, expressing how 'sometimes the melancholy arrives before the remembering'. The series of 'Birthmother's Confessions' return to repeated, harrowing questions that yield different answers at different moments. This quite extraordinary book by a writer of great imagistic power and skill ('hair the dark red of a nectarine pit') leaves a mark on the reader which…
Brother. Do. You. Love. Me. is a true story of brotherly love overcoming all. Reuben, who has Down's syndrome, was trapped in a care home during the pandemic, spiralling deeper into a non-verbal depression. From isolation and in desperation, he sent his older brother Manni a text, "brother. do. you.…
When I was going through the process of adopting my second child, after having my first by a more conventional route, I looked for diverse representations of mothering to help me make sense of my journey. These recommended books helped me to understand the lived experience from all sides of the adoption triangle: adoptee, birth mother, and adopter. I was curious about the experience of other mothers whose children have an additional mother and found a lack of life writing on surrogacy and egg donation. As a published novelist and poet, I decided to move into experimental life writing and undertook a PhD in Creative Writing to discover and write their stories.
Adoptee Jackie Kay’s poetry collection presents the voices of three speakers who are distinguished typographically: the daughter, the adoptive mother, and the birth mother.
Read in conjunction with Kay’s memoir on adoption, Read Dust Road, this poetry collection offers a fascinating insight into the adoption triangle through multiple versions of the same events.
Jackie Kay tells the story of a black girl's adoption by a white Scottish couple, from three different viewpoints: the mother, the birth mother, and the daughter. The Adoption Papers won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. In 2022 The Adoption Papers was selected as one of ten books representing the 1990s in The Big Jubilee Read, a celebration of great books from across the Commonwealth to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, one of only three poetry collections out of 70 books on the list.
I am first generation American - my mother is from Ireland and my father is from Germany. I’ve always had an interest in my heritage and developed a passion for genealogy. My curiosity led me to researching Industrial Schools and Mother Baby Homes in Ireland. I’ve read many books about these institutions and also wrote a book of my own based on stories of former residents of St. Joseph’s Industrial School in Ballinasloe, Galway.
In her book Belonging: A Memoir of Place, along with her personal journey, Corless shares her research and activism work towards justice for the lost babies of the Tuam Mother Baby Home. Her book is an excellent resource to learn about the institutions where unmarried mothers paid their penance and gave birth to their “illegitimate” children. Her book includes heart-wrenching accounts from former residents.
I’ve had several exchanges with Catherine since 2010 when she responded to a query I had posted regarding the Tuam Mother Baby Home. Catherine Corless has brought worldwide attention to a scandal she uncovered: 796 missing burial records of children born in the Tuam Mother Baby Home.
ONE WOMAN, THE SECRETS OF A SMALL TOWN, AND A QUEST FOR JUSTICE THAT ROCKED A NATION.
Catherine Corless could not have known where her interest in local history would lead her, as she began researching the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in Galway in 2010. Uncovering no less than 796 missing burial records of children born there, the stark truth of their place of rest became clear: a disused sewage tank on the old home site, where two boys had once stumbled upon bones.
But who were these lost children, and what had happened to them in the care…
I was raised as one of two white kids in a large, multiracial adoptive family by loving parents who wanted to change the world. Our parents were thoughtful about adoption, ambitious about the symbolism of our family, and raised us all to be conscious about race, to see it, and to guard against it. But the world is a lot bigger than our house and racism is insidious and so, in a way, we all eventually got swallowed up. So I started thinking hard about the dynamic relationship between race and adoption and family when I was just a kid, and I’ve never really stopped.
I should have read this book years ago. This singularly brilliant memoir is an undoing of the most pernicious adoption myth: that which traces the success of adopted children to their new families.
In this case, a bright and talented young woman makes it out of the foster system before eventually going to Penn and becoming an accomplished journalist and professor, but her adoption out of foster care turns into yet another traumatic experience.
Ambitiously, Patton spins that trauma outward, expanding the background until it spans centuries. When, by the close, she makes the start of a career for herself, that triumph is pretty much hers alone.
An astonishing coming-of-age memoir by a young woman who survived the foster care system to become an award-winning journalist On a rainy night in November 1999, a shoeless Stacey Patton, promising student at NYU, approached her adoptive parents' house with a gun in her hand. She wanted to kill them. Or so she thought. No one would ever imagine that the vibrant, smart, and attractive Stacey had a childhood from hell. After all, with God-fearing, house-proud, and hardworking adoptive parents, she appeared to beat the odds. But her mother was tyrannical, and her father turned a blind eye to the…
Pete is content living a simple life in the remote Montana town of Sleeping Grass, driving the local garbage truck with his pot-bellied pig Pearl and wondering about what could've been. Elderly widow Wilma is busy meddling in Pete's life to try and make up for past wrongs that he…
I am an adoptive parent and I often use stories to help my children to understand and process emotive topics. While we were going through the adoption process, I couldn’t find any stories that adequately explained why some children can’t stay with their birth families, so I decided to create my own! I found the waiting during the adoption process quite unbearable and put every spare minute to good use, reading books by adoptees and birth parents, so that I could understand the experiences of the people affected most by adoption. These autobiographies were a tough, emotional read at times, but they all changed me for the better.
I found this short, emotional story impossible to put down. I read it in one sitting, spent the next few days thinking about it, then read it again. Astrid talks about her childhood, including the events that led to her being taken into foster care, and her fear and confusion when this happened. Astrid talks about her experiences of sibling contact in foster care and after adoption, which I found really interesting. Adoptive parents should read this, to help understand how their children may feel if they have siblings placed elsewhere.
Are you my new mum? Tells of the harrowing true story of the Peerson siblings. You'll read the disturbing words written by Astrid, of the abuse herself, and her siblings endured on a daily basis.
Unloved, abused, and neglected by their biological parents.
Astrid's father, an evil, narcissistic, pedophile, who abused his position as the head of of the household. Astrid's mother, who sat back and allowed the abuse to go on, for many years, even sometimes joining in.
Astrid tells her story from childhood abuse, being taken to a children's home, being in a few foster homes, finding a…
I'm a 24-year-old, 1st time Author with big plans to call for major changes within our current social system, to bring the taboo subject of child abuse, to conversation. My own story, yes is an extreme case, but isn’t an uncommon occurrence and affects many. My book, The Girl In The Pink Shoes, was written not only for my own self-help but to also help many others to know they are not alone and someone is fighting their corner. I hope my book will open the right doors to raise awareness and make my charity, Your Voice UK, a success and help bring a brighter future to children who have suffered abuse.
Cathy has written many books about children from abuse, but I feel this book resonates with me, as the story of the little girl Donna, is very similar to my own story. Placed in care after being neglected by her alcoholic mother, all Donna really wanted was to be loved.
I think this really is true with most children who are placed in the social system, the feeling of abandonment and detachment runs deep and we all just want to feel part of something, to be part of a family.
Many of Cathy’s books are written to explain what can happen and the reality of life, when living in certain situations that many are just not aware of, or choose to ignore. This book is well worth a read, it certainly brought a tear to my eye.
The Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Damaged tells the true story of Donna, who came into foster care aged ten, having been abused, victimised and rejected by her family.
Donna had been in foster care with her two young brothers for three weeks when she is abruptly moved to Cathy's. When Donna arrives she is silent, withdrawn and walks with her shoulders hunched forward and her head down. Donna is clearly a very haunted child and refuses to interact with Cathy's children Adrian and Paula.
After patience and encouragement from Cathy, Donna slowly starts to talk…
When I was eighteen, I had an experience I call religious: I was sitting outside of an ivy-covered building at my undergraduate school and reading the opening words of Vergil’s Roman epic, The Aeneid (in Latin, but I didn’t know Latin yet). The sky became clearer; it shone with different light. It became clear to me at that moment that I was supposed to be a poet. So, yeah, I went on to learn lots of stuff, including languages, so that I could read poetry in them. I did all that to serve the greater goal of being a poet.
When I first read this book during my miserable high school years, I learned that a writer can take the trauma of adolescence and high school and turn it into mythology. Bullies, Bible-thumpers, and that rare compassionate soul—in this novel, they become cosmic American forces as resonant as Jung’s archetypes.
Stephen King's legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates, is a Classic. CARRIE is the novel which set him on the road to the Number One bestselling author King is today.
Carrie White is no ordinary girl.
Carrie White has the gift of telekinesis.
To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie - the first step towards social acceptance by her high school colleagues.
But events will take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night as she is forced to exercise her…
In May 1941, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, hums with talk of spring flowers, fishing derbies, and the growing war in Europe. And for the residents of a quiet neighborhood boarding house, the winds of change are blowing.
Self-proclaimed spinster, Bessie Blackwell, is the reluctant owner of a new pair of glasses. The…
I have an expertise in parenting topics because I work as a prevention advocate for children. I work to keep children safe from; school violence, child abuse, and domestic violence. Additionally I've written children’s books on friendship and race relations for preschoolers. I'm prevention central! Prevention is so much more fun than remiation which I did for 20 years as a middle school counselor. I'm skilled at taking a difficult social topic and breaking it down into language that toddlers and preschoolers can understand. I am ending school violence, child abuse and domestic violence one book at a time. Won’t you join me in making the world a safer place?
There will be 500,000 babies born in the US this year that will be sexually abused before they turn 18 if we do not prevent it. Child abuse is 90% preventable. 90%of children are harmed by a loved one or family member. This book is for olderchildren ages 8 to 13 years. It has wonderful illustrations and a very important message for children to understand and internalizse.
The Swimsuit Lesson is a powerful family resource - introducing a simple, yet effective way for parents to educate their children about the danger of sexual abuse. This beautifully illustrated story book includes a separate step-by-step parent's guide. Author, and police officer, Jon Holsten provides a realistic view of the danger facing children today, and what families can do to reduce chances of being victimized.
