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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.
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