Irene Powell's new book "Laughter and Tears" will inspire readers. New biography of the life of a wartime civilian hero and lifetime friend is certain to affect readers. LIVERPOOL, England -- Despite the seeming best efforts of generations, poverty, famine and war persist in the world. One has only to turn on the nightly news or read the headlines to know this is true. In her new book, "Laughter and Tears: Johanna's Story," debut author Irene Powell presents the inspiring story of her friend, Johanna, who survived the German occupation of Holland during World War II, then worked in German refugee camps before settling in England and training as a nurse and midwife. "Johanna was a really down-to-earth person, " Irene writes, "with no special attributes other than a strong determination to live life to the fullest, no matter what life dealt to her and to help and care for others." The narrative reveals a woman who did just those things, helping others and making herself and example for anyone who wishes to live a life of value. An excerpt from "Laughter and Tears" "We were all starving. People were dying from hunger. My sister and I left home in search for food. We had no money or valuables with which to barter so took some of dad's shaving soap hoping someone would exchange it for a little food. We had been walking for thirteen hours. Our feet were blistered, we were cold, tired and hungry. We planned to knock on one more door. If that failed we would have to find shelter under a tree for the night and try again tomorrow." Though Johanna died in 2011, just before her 85th birthday, her legacy and her memory live on in the people she helped, friends she made and lives she changed.

International adoption is in a state of virtual collapse, rates having fallen by more than half since 2004 and continuing to fall. Yet around the world millions of orphaned and vulnerable children need permanent homes, and thousands of American and European families are eager to take them in. Many government officials, international bureaucrats, and social commentators claim these adoptions are not ""in the best interests"" of the child. They claim that adoption deprives children of their ""birth culture,"" threatens their racial identities, and even encourages widespread child trafficking. Celebrity adopters are publicly excoriated for stealing children from their birth families. This book argues that opposition to adoption ostensibly based on the well-being of the child is often a smokescreen for protecting national pride. Concerns about the harm done by transracial adoption are largely inconsistent with empirical evidence. As for trafficking, opponents of international adoption want to shut it down because it is too much like a market for children. But this book offers a radical challenge to this view-that is, what if instead of trying to suppress market forces in international adoption, we embraced them so they could be properly regulated? What if the international system functioned more like open adoption in the United States, where birth and adoptive parents can meet and privately negotiate the exchange of parental rights? This arrangement, the authors argue, could eliminate the abuses that currently haunt international adoption. The authors challenge the prevailing wisdom with their economic analyses and provocative analogies from other policy realms. Based on their own family's experience with the adoption process, they also write frankly about how that process feels for parents and children.