N Books

This is a story about a six-year-old angel named Jacob who arrives in Heaven and discovers that the children angels take care of the pets until their owners die and come to heaven.

This book is written by Amy Nolfo-Wheeler and is a picture book illustrated by N. A. Noel who is famous for her life-like angel pictures and her animals. This is a very sweet book and could help children who experience death of an animal for the first time.

The story is preceded by the lyrics to Fly, a song, written by Jean-Jacques Goldman and Phil Gladston and recorded by Celine Dion, about a bereaved person releasing the spirit of a loved one until they meet again.

Incredible illustrations and wonderful story!! Bought it for my children as I loved the message and thought it would be good in the loss of a pet. Now I find myself in the position of supporting a friend's child as he prepares to die after a 5 yr. battle with cancer. NEVER thought I'd need it for that but was thrilled to find the main character's age (6 yrs old)is the same as this child. I know this book will help him on his journey!

A wonderful book! I give one to everyone I know who is struggling in dealing with this type of loss.

This book was a gift. It was given to me because my son passed away from a terminal genetic muscle defect 11 days after he was born.

The pictures are gorgeous!! I give the pictures 5 stars.

The story is cute and simple. I would recommend this book to be read to children who are dealing with the loss of a pet or the loss of a friend/sibling. It is also a charming book for an adult who has also suffered a loss.

My niece died when my daughter was only 5. She struggled to come to terms with the concept of death, and to understand why her cousin had to die. Even more so, were her questions on what her cousin would do in Heaven. How would she live without her mommy and daddy? In our search to help her to understand a little better, a friend showed us this book. It was just the nudge she needed to move on, and accept that her cousin was not coming back, and was safe and well cared for in Heaven. Now, 3 years later, my daughter still loves this book. She now reads it to her new baby sister, and tells her all about their cousin in Heaven, and how she too, is taking caring of animals. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is struggling to deal with a loss.

I have everything by him. He is my hero. This book has holidays around the country & he explains why he thinks that holiday is best celebrated in that city. It is David Tutera gold. Get it.

America Entertains was my holiday survival guide! The December in NYC Party gave me so many festive home decorating ideas and amazing recipes. My guests simply couldn't stop eating the Molasses Christmas Crinkles or drinking the Mistletoe Martinis.

Valentines Day is just around the corner, I am already reviewing David's February in New Orleans Chapter. I know my husband will love chocolate-covered rose petals and Sinfully Red Cocktails but I'm guessing I will be enjoying them more than him!!!

David, thank-you so much!!

David is truly an amazing talent who can transform any idea into magnificent! I loved his first book and was so delighted to have book number two. His ideas are fresh, original and imaginative and the recipes are incredible too. If you are looking for the perfect party planning book, this is IT! David Tutera is magic!

A beautiful book to inspire any party planning with out of this world recipes and easy to understand tips for decorating. Many ideas for elegant settings to simple elements with just the perfect menu to enhance each. Stunning photographs will get "your creative" juices flowing. Tutera's tips (Essentials,
Extra's & Extravagances)are very helpful. A must to own if you truly enjoy entertaining!

America Entertains is a must have for everyone. If your looking for entertaining for the holidays and different ways to decorate this book is a must.
David Tutera has the most incredible ideas and the Tutera tips keep you on your toes..
He is a very exquisite and talented designer. I've seen David on "the View" and the Wayne Brady show, And I look forward to more shows to get wonderful ideas that make your house a home and you can enjoy your party.
A must have!!

This is one of those works that will stick with you. It is rather difficult to discribe. I do note, after talking to several people, and reading several reviews on this site and others, that each person who reads this one finds something a bit different. Myself, I was haunted, in a good way, and yet disturbed at the same time. The wonderful prose pulls you into this unknown mans life. The wonderful art work keeps you there. I personally love the work. I do recommend though, that it would probably be best to read this one with the young reader rather than let them try it by themselves for the first time. I find it difficult to think that a very young person would be able to identify with the lonely man in this story nor understand just what is happening (as a matter of fact, after several readings, I'm not all that sure myself, and I am as old as dirt). Be that as it may, this is certainly one worth giving a read, several reads as a matter of fact!

I bought this book thinking it would be a good one for my nieces and nephew; it really is. While the book is slightly sad, I feel it is appropriate to share with children as it profiles how one can find happiness in their own cirumstances through different vehicles. The vehicle in this main character's life is his "wishes" and his association with a common activity and the people who make the activity meaningful.
Read it, read it again, share it and share it again.

I bought this book quite a long time ago and it is still number one book in my library and will be. It makes my eyes full of tears everytime I read. What more I can say? I just LOVE this book. I really do. Story, Illustration... Beautiful, just beautiful. I wish I could give it 5 million stars, if that's possible. : )

I like this book because it's very creative. It shows a lot of thought. Solomon learns a lesson to use his imagination more. He knows he cannot have balconies, change his walls a different color. And that is why he did not like his hotel at all. The author doesn't use simple words. For example, he doesn't say "a quiet voice said..." He says "a quiet voice like Indiana pines in November said..."
I recommend this book for all people.

I think it is one of the most perfect books ever. Since my mom bought it, well,I'm encouraged. Because I'm a student, I could have it for my schoolbook. If I could give it ten billion stars, I'd yell out, "Hey, Solomon Singer!" (Giggle!)

I ordered this book after seeing it on Food TV. I have baked 3 cookie recipes and made one pasta sauce from this book and they are all superb. As somebody else said, the "real deal". I grew up next door to a lovely Sicilian woman and the pignoli cookies in the book are exactly as she made them. If you have one Italian cookbook, this should be the one.

Great memories, great recipes. Fun book to look through. A must have if you love true Italian cooking.

It's permanently on the counter right next to my WEEKEND BAKER cookbook.

PS: I have to add a negative. In my opinion, a few of the recipes leave out *just a little bit*. I noticed in the pignoli cookies, for example, I believe the instruction should say "beat the egg whites", it does not tell you to do that. I have found the same in another recipe. Just my opinion, but I think there is a little secret keeping. I still recommend this book, there are truly marvelous recipes to be enjoyed.

If you have ever lived near, or on A street in NYC like Arthur Ave.and Little Italy, the pictures and recipes will bring you there again, you can even hear the conversations, and the smell of the neighborhood are so vivid, you want to try to repeat the recipes and be there. They did,nt have super markets, it was a neighborhood ,and shopping for the foods needed for the day ment talking to the veg. man and the sausage maker and then the cheese store. It ment asking how the family in Itly was, and getting the news or a different story from every market. Fresh bread OH How I Miss it. This book is a master of REAL ITALIAN FOODS, and from the REAL ITALIANS

The recipes were excellent but the story of the "Real Liitle Italy" was fantastic. I grew up in this neighborhood as a child and was encouraged to find out that many of the merchants and the character of the area are still in place. Great recipies and even better story. I have not been back for many years , but I will now make an effort to visit when I go back East.

The Arthur Avenue Cookbook is beautifully put together in every way. The recipes, the photographs, the storyline and the quality of the book itself are absolutely first-rate. The people in this book are completely genuine - there is an honesty about their lives and their livelihoods that jumps from the pages. There are no pretenses here: the recipes do not require a lot of complex sauces or fancy ingredients and there isn't a lot of impressive talk about the celebrities who may have visited these businesses, rather it is a book about ordinary people with extraordinary attitudes about what tastes good. It is all as you would want it - cooking that is straight from the heart, straight from the soul. Bellisimo!!

This is a wonderful book with great recipes and stories. For anyone who had an Italian immigrant arrive in this country through Ellis Island, and especially if their family settled originally in the Bronx, this is a must-have book.

I read this wonderful book when it was first released, but something--summmer weather, I thought--made me pick it up again. Quickly I realized the book had been with me the whole time, and within a few pages, Pierce's voice had lulled me again into a state of high suggestibility where landscape, history and dream comingle. At first the novel seems fragmented, but soon you realize that Pierce's characters, especially Sam Browne, move according to their own timelines. Trauma, uncertainty and loss guide this book on a scavenger hunt of meaning that lead to the Blue Mountains of Australia, a setting that, like an astrological chart, casts its fortune on three generations of soon-to-be wanderers. Todd Pierce's The Australia Stories is just as timeless and influential.

"The Australia Stories" is a beautifully written, captivating novel. Pierce's amazingly clean, crisp writing creates wonderful images that transport the reader to the time and place of each story. The stories would appeal to anyone, young, old, male or female. Each individual story is masterfully woven as a part of the larger story, and the end pulls them all together in an unexpected, but perfect, way. I could not put the book down and, when I finished, I wished there was more!

This five-star debut uber-novel, a sequence of short stories, takes the reader across oceans of time to Sydney and the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Pierce risks sentimentality on his poignant journey - and comes up with something like a prose poem I could not put away until I reached its last intense page. Other readers have praised the novel's plot and characters. I'd like to extol its powerful nostalgia, its longing for what Proust called les temps perdu. The Australia Stories creates an almost mythical aura about its setting and characters; it is exponentially more radiant than any travel guide. The wonder of the author of this book is that, rather than living like an aesthete in a cork-lined room, Pierce has performed an enormous service to all writers by maintaining a stellar Web site about literary agents. He is both at home in the fictive world he creates in The Australia Stories - and alive and well in his generosity and tirelessness as a member of the workaday literary community. Cozy up to Pierce's pocket-sized The Australia Stories and let it take you to a magical Down Under!

I picked this up because a friend told me about it. Took me about two evenings to read. Fabulous story. Stunningly written. Seriously, each paragraph was dazzling. I'm only saddened because (at least on Amazon) this is the author's only work. Hopefully, there'll be more.

The mythology of Australia is central to this novel. Both Sam Browne's grandmother and mother have vanished into the wilds of the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, his grandmother to myth and his mother in search of her own mother's memory. These disappearances (his mother's body is found, his grandmother's never found) have a profound influence on Sam as he remembers the year he spent with his mother in Australia before she was lost forever.

Pierce combines the unfathomable territory of memory with myth-saturated Australia, where the Aboriginal population has produced such ethereal tales from spectacular geography. Pierce also adds a strong feminist content to Sam's identification with his maternal relatives. His mother has had a positive effect on the young boy and the grandmother's journals offer him even more understanding of their unique bond with the land.

After returning to the United States, Sam finishes school, marries and divorces. Yet he remains fascinated by the stories of his mother and grandmother. Sam is able to recover most of his grandmother's original documents and spends his time pouring over their contents. His grandmother's voice speaks to him over the years, seducing him back into the land of myth that plays such an important role in his life. He cannot help but heed the siren call of his mother's native country.

In The Australia Stories, Todd James Pierce perfectly captures female sensitivities and the power of familial ties, reading Sam's mother's emotions with acuity in that short year spent with her in Katoomba, before returning to California. While the maturing Sam Browne feels Australia in the marrow of his bones, the lives of his mother and grandmother are ever more an intrinsic element of his spirit. He begins an intimate journey toward understanding the true nature of intergenerational connections, evolving one into another, spiraling through time. At peace with the past, finally, Sam steps easily into his future, where limitations are allowed no purchase, offering only promise and possibility. Luan Gaines/2003.

Aside from the matter of salvation read this because..

Jesus prayed for the church not to divid, yet we divided. The topic of baptism is one of the strongest dividing lines amongst those who profess Christianity. If the church is ever going to be united as a whole body working in unison its going to take people willing to study subjects like baptism and sit down and debate until there is an accord.

Despite what you may have been taught about baptism, despite whether or not your loved one died with out baptism, despite what all your church and friends believe about baptism, there is a black and white truth to baptism. The Bible is very clear on the subject, yet there is division.

The truth is its a matter of life and death. And after reading this book, it walks you through the logic, the facts, the history and the word itself and at the end you will see baptism the way it clearly is painted in the word. Its not needed to be read, but it takes the subject as a whole from the the Bible and puts all the peices together in one writting. So read this if not for yourself, but to help others and unify the those who profess christ.

I believe its essential. Any argument against youve heard will not stand up to truth. go to bebaptized. org and if that ignites you, read this book too.

Even as someone from the reformed perspective, I found myself in substantial agreement with Dr. Cottrell's exegetical and theological conclusions that baptism actually confers the very blessings that those in the evangelical community, as well as many in the modern reformed community, believe it merely symbolizes (i.e. the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit). His argument that baptism as a condition of salvation doesn't violate the doctrine of justification by grace alone since baptism is really a work of God and not a work of man, is very similar to the arguments of Luther on this issue and is not at all incompatible with the theology of the reformation. However, I didn't find his arguments and conclusions that the efficacy of baptism is exclusively tied to the exact moment it is administered to be a necessary inference from the biblical texts. Overall, this book is a much needed wake up call to the evangelical and Reformed communities to reexamine their presuppositions regarding the meaning and importance of baptism and the biblical teaching regarding its place in the salvation process of the elect.

Cottrell is painstakingly thorough, yet his writing is well-organized and clear. You feel as if you've considered the subject from every possible angle. The result is a deeper understanding of God's amazing grace. Cottrell's scholarship uncovers meanings that even avid Bible students might have missed. And they all point to the magnificence of God's work.

Cottrell's approach is what makes this book so helpful. It's even-handed, an objective search for what the New Testament writers--and God--intended for their audiences to hear. Every seeker of truth should read this book.

Jack Cottrell tackles the subject of Baptism with an understanding that the reader will also be a seeker. Because of that, he approaches the subject with such enormous grace to keep the reader engaged all the way through. No one who reads this book will be disappointed, nor will they be offended by the way he handles the subject matter. I look forward to reading more of his books.

Whether you believe as Cottrell does about baptism or not you can't help but to enjoy reading this book on the subject. The book is written in a style that any serious Bible student will enjoy and benefit from. Just the way that Cottrell explains salvation is worth reading the book for. This book will challenge any believer concerning their view on baptism and it's place in the Christian experience. I also must say that this book, unlike so many, does not defend the position so much as it explains it and that is refreshing. Read it whether you are in the Church of Christ or not. If not, and you read this book, you will respect what they believe even if you have an issue with this doctrine.

Until I bought this book, I had never made a woven basket, only coiled ones. This book has made it easy for me to progress from one to the other. It has great technical drawings, easy to understand instructions, and beautiful photographs. The sections covering terminology, helpful hints, and resources have also been useful to me. This book also has a great variety of patterns, of which "Feather Basket" and "Potato Basket" are my favorites. I recommend The Basket Book for beginning basket makers.

J.H. Sweet, author of The Fairy Chronicles, and basket maker

This is the BEST beginner book on basketmaking that I have found. I believe it should be in everyones collection. The baskets are lovely and inovative. Even the most simple are elegant and useful. I have used this book until it is in shreds! The intructions are very clear and well illustrated. And the designs and patterns teach as well as instruct. I can`t say enough good about this book. If you intend to sell your baskets, this book will pay for itself on the first sale. And the baskets are charming and very saleable, even the easy ones. There are also some more challanging patterns for the more expirienced. A "must have" for any basketmaker.

After the first look through the book, I couldn't wait to read it in deapth. Sat down and read it with a specific project in mind and found numerous wonderful ideas that will make my project easier and much more successful. Great pictures and directions are clear, concise and to the point If you like baskets and want to make heritge quality baskets, this is the book for you. Enjoy, I am!!!

This is a wonderful book for those getting started in basketmaking. It has step-by-step illustrations and color photos. The text is enjoyable and easy to understand. The author explains the whys and whats in a personable manner that's as encouraging as it is informative. The baskets are fun to make and are useful in the home and as gifts.

I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it for any one interested in the subject!

I've had this cookbook for years and my most recent purchase of it (used) was to get it for another foodie friend. It is a feast for the eyes, but also has wonderful recipes that are in my regular repertoire. The book also gives you wonderful ideas for presentation and combinations with other dishes.

I have had this cookbook since it was first published and I still find that it is one of the cookbooks that I reach for most often. Beautiful photography. I don't hesitate to try a new recipe on company as I've never had a failure. I consider it to be a "Classic".

This is one of those cookbooks that you can pick up hours before a dinner party, open it to any page, make the dish and have rave reviews. There are VERY few dishes in here that aren't good.

This is an older cookbook, but definitely worth looking into adding to your collection!

We would go hungry without this book! This is the cook book we use far and away more than any other. We have even started some family holiday traditions from the recipes i.e. the green beans with pears - amazing! You never have to worry about making a recipe because they are all fantastic. It is a regular gift from us and we have been told many times it's the receivers new favorite cook book as well. Buy it, it is any cook's must have!

Beyond Parsley is one cookbook I always have nearby -- and I have many, many cookbooks. I am renowned among my family members and friends for e-mailing special recipes -- and many have come from this special gem. I have too many favorites in the book to list but if I had to select just ONE, I would choose Cossack Cheese. That one is a WINNER in every respect, and has gained the love of people around the US to whom I have sent the recipe. D. Ray Fuller Jr., Dallas, Texas

This is by far the authors' best work to date - I couldn't put this one down. It was so easy to identify with Jane and root for her character along the way. I especially loved the character, Coates...(I usually try to put actor's faces to the characters I am reading and I could totally picture Patrick Dempsey in this role :))

It was much more emotional than I expected - more so than any other chick/lit book I've read...I was actually sad to see it end. Here's to more from Dayton & Vanderbilt!

I thought this was a really great book. It was clean, interesting, and fun. I would definitely recommend it.

Every book I've read by these authors gets better and better. I was pretty disappointed by Emily Ever After, as I felt that he protagonist was unlikeable and hypocritical. But I saw enough positives in the writing to check out their next book, Consider Lily, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I picked up The Book of Jane the following week, and I absolutely loved it. Jane was real, relatable, and likeable. The plot is a contemporary retelling of the book of Job, and is an encouraging read for anyone who knows what it's like to question your faith when life seems to fall apart. There were actually moments in the book that made my eyes well up: just little kernels of wisdom in there that spoke to my heart. I highly recommend this book, and look forward to the next novel by these authors.

Jane had it all. Great job, wonderful boyfriend, good apartment. Everything was going well for her. But then it all comes crashing down. Her boyfriend dumps her. She loses her job. Her apartment gets halfway destroyed. Rumors are spread about her. And she has this weird rash on her face that won't go away. It's enough to make anyway jump off the deep end. But thanks to her faith in God and a cute guy who seems to pop up at the right moments, Jane learns how to get through it all.

Christian chick lit just keeps getting better and better these days. It's great to read about stories about young women who are Christians with strong faith yet still like to shop for shoes and hunt for guys. Dayton and Vanderbilt's characters live like real people do without being all high and mighty or overly trying to witness to others. They show their faith by their actions, not trying to convert everyone they see. This book was tons of fun to read. Jane is a great character, very multi dimensional and easy to relate to. I felt for Jane especially during the scene where she tries to call her friend for help. Curse words would have uttered out of me at that point. I love the scenes in the hotel. I felt happy that something finally good was going for her. The storyline is a chick lit parable of the book of Job, but luckily Jane doesn't have it half as bad as he did (although the rash on her face would cause her to think she did). She handled things better than I would have in her situation. I would have been faced with the urge to throw something at the perpetrator of all the rumors about her. And her boyfriend: ARGGGHH! I have no complaints at all about this book. I couldn't stop reading it and now I want everyone else to. A funny hip read with a strong message about faith and belief in God. This is a book I could pass along to others even those who don't normally read Christian fiction. Highly recommended for a good time.

I enjoy "chick-lit" that is light, fun and entertaining. And if the aforementioned novel has an uplifting message to boot... well, that makes it perfect. The Book of Jane is a modern-day look into the Bible's book of Job, and the novel enthralled me, touched me, made me smile and at times laugh out loud all at the same time. Twenty-eight-year-old New Yorker Jane Williams has it all. She has a chic apartment in the Village, a fabulous PR job, a great boyfriend, wonderful friends and an awesome hobby as a leader of the Girl Scouts. She is also a devoted Christian. But it's easy to be a Christian when one's life is going well. Will Jane's faith falter if she were to suddenly lose it all? Well, she's about to find out. Jane goes through a tough road to self-discovery, and with an arrogant and coaxing jerk like Coates Glassman to test her, the road gets even bumpier.

I LOVED reading this! Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt know how to fuse an inspirational, Christian message with a fun and sassy voice without being preachy or judgmental. Most people are under the impression that Christians are a strict, joyless bunch. A novel like this proves them wrong. Jane is a great character. She is sweet and grounded. Her flaws and cries for help humanize her. She is a character that all women could relate to. The secondary characters are wonderful as well. I loved Lee, Jane's next door neighbor and best friend. I thought Matt, the movie star, was a tad stereotyped, but that was the one of the very few flaws in this book. The novel starts out a little slow, but it soon becomes impossible to put down. Yes, The Book of Jane is a modern take of Job and how God tested him, and the results are wonderful. Dayton and Vanderbilt are authors whose work I'll look closely from now on. In the meantime, I highly recommend this gem.

This book touched me to the core! Catherine's story is searingly honest, human, passionate and moving. Inspite of being extremely busy I could not put it down from the time it was delivered until 3am when I had finished it. This tour de force not only addresses issues of adoption, identity, race and prejudice but also how one's environment and circumstances affect one's own perception of events and experiences. It is the best book I have read in years!

It can be hard enough to come to terms with family and identity when one is not adopted. Imagine growing up the transracial adoptee of a white family in a tiny working class town in rural Massachusetts (read: all white). Moreover, you are biracial and subject to putdowns and jibes by "full-blooded" members of your race. This background makes up the first part of Catherine McKinley's compulsively readable memoir. The second part is her search for her roots, and her reckoning when she finds those roots and they are not quite what she expected.

McKinley has a superb ear for dialogue and mood. Moreover, The Book of Sarahs is so full of suprises that sometimes it's like reading a thriller. McKinley starts out by giving us her fantasy of her birth mother that carried her through her youth (most adoptees have one)...and part of the fun of the book is seeing just how different reality is from her fantasy, again and again. McKinley also writes with wonderful humor and subtle characterizations that make it difficult to dislike anyone in her book despite their foibles. Finally, I can't agree with other reviewers that McKinley was cruel to her adoptive family. Her adoptive parents clearly understood her journey, and by the end of the book she intimated that she had resolved her issues with them.

Don't miss this one...one of the best I've read this year!

Catherine went searching for the truth and she found it. It was reality and not a made up story with a happy ending. I believe that she was very self serving in telling the story. I felt she did not really appreciate the parents who raised her, until the very end. I wondered how they felt after reading this book. She certainly laid out all her complaints about them. I personally could relate to her mother, who was doing the very best she could for a rather unappreciative daughter.
On the other hand, I think I gained some insight to what it was like to grow up black in a white world, not easy at all. I'm glad she was able to tell this story with as much depth and clarity as she did.
This story also brings to light the plight of the children of a middle class woman who had several children and didn't choose to acknowledge or care for them. What about birth control? Yes, she was mentally ill, but I wonder if we can excuse her for that.

In the last several years I have done the research that reunited my husband (in his 60's) with the birth mother who gave him up. The search was very interesting and it was a miracle how it all came together. The story has a bittersweet ending, since his birth mother passed away within a year of their reunion.

This is a great story and I couldn't put it down.

I beg to differ with some of the other customer reviews posted for The Book of Sarahs. Reality is messy. Members of the adoption triad--birthparents, adoptees, and adoptive parents--share a complicated, emotionally charged relationship from the moment the adoptee is born. There are one thousand and one reasons why birthmothers feel that relinquishment is the best possible choice for their child; there are just as many reasons why adoptive parents choose to raise a non-biological child. But the adoptee has the most to gain or lose. In my twenty-six years as a birthmother, I am continually amazed by the infinite variety of paths triad members have traveled, yet we're all connected by the same feelings of uncertainty, wistfulness, and longing for what might have been. Thankfully, adoption today is much more open, kinder, gentler; many studies have documented the impact of adoption on all triad members, and there are fewer black holes than there were a generation or more ago. Catherine McKinley's personal story of life as an adopted Black child raised in a white family and predominately white community will captivate readers. One does not have to a member of the adoption community to appreciate her search for self. Ms. McKinley's prose is a pleasure to read, a beautifully, richly written story of relationships that readers will find hard to put down.

This book tells the tale of Catherine McKinley's search for her birth parents. McKinley, who is biracial, was adopted at birth. Brought up in a White family, she found herself drawn towards African American culture in her search for building her own identity. As an adult, questions about who she was and how she came to be gradually took over the focus of her life. In this book, she details how she searched for her birth parents and eventually found them, as well as other family members.

From reading the blurb on the back cover of the book, I had expected the book to focus more on McKinley's experiences of growing up as an adopted biracial child. I have very little experience myself with issues relating to adoption, and I had no idea how consuming the questions of identity and family can be for an adopted child. Prospective adoptive parents might learn quite a bit from this book about how adopted children may have an unquenchable thirst for knowing their birth parents, a thirst that can taint relationships between them and their adopted family members if not handled appropriately. Adoptees, on the other hand, may be quite interested to read how McKinley proceeded in her search, and how the results of her search compared with her dreams. The emotional issues concerning adoption are never easy to reconcile; after all, every adoption starts with a tragedy that has resulted in parents having to give up their children. The children and all of their parents, both adopted and birth, must spend the remainder of their lives putting the pieces back together.