- Paperback: 216 pages
- Publisher: University of Minnesota Press; Reprint edition (1 April 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 081662867X
- ISBN-13: 978-0816628674
- Product Dimensions: 2.3 x 1.5 x 0.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,202,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Synopsis
The author recalls her separation from her birth family, time spent in an orphanage, adoption, and eventual reunion with the sister who had never stopped looking for her.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I cried and marvelled at the resiliance of a child's spirit. I was touched by the deep loyalty siblings showed for each other. I wanted to tell Patty's adoptive parents to be careful, to nurture the empty places, to fill up the gaps with affection, not to ignore the sadness. I vowed to let my children be who they are, not an image I created of who they should be. I was sensitized to the stigma of not living with a biological family in the '40s. I was touched by the faith and personal strength that sustained Patty. How can we learn from her experiences in a political era that considers rebuilding orphanages? We should read Patty's journey for wisdom.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Important and enlightening
11 Sep 2008
Format:Paperback
I've now read several nonfiction works by adults who were adopted as children and later reunited with their birth parents. Patty's Journey is very good.
The book is well-written, though Donna Scott Nordling's prose is not nearly as compelling or literary in quality as that of Betty Jean Lifton's Twice Born. Nor does this book offer the same insight into an adopted child's sense of being different, and lost.
Nevertheless, Nordling's is a very important story for the pain it exposes of children who were torn from their families by unfeeling courts making little or no attempt to keep the biological families together. She and her siblings were taken from their mother after her father stole some radios during the Depression to try and support them; for reasons unclear, her mother never fought to regain custody.
Unlike some adoptees, Nordling's adotpive family offered her a genuine love, despite making some typical mistakes. And in her case, sadly, that family closeness and the years of separation made it impossible for her to renew the warmth she had once had with her biological family.
For all adoptive families, birth families and adopted people, this is a very enlightening and important book.
The book is well-written, though Donna Scott Nordling's prose is not nearly as compelling or literary in quality as that of Betty Jean Lifton's Twice Born. Nor does this book offer the same insight into an adopted child's sense of being different, and lost.
Nevertheless, Nordling's is a very important story for the pain it exposes of children who were torn from their families by unfeeling courts making little or no attempt to keep the biological families together. She and her siblings were taken from their mother after her father stole some radios during the Depression to try and support them; for reasons unclear, her mother never fought to regain custody.
Unlike some adoptees, Nordling's adotpive family offered her a genuine love, despite making some typical mistakes. And in her case, sadly, that family closeness and the years of separation made it impossible for her to renew the warmth she had once had with her biological family.
For all adoptive families, birth families and adopted people, this is a very enlightening and important book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A SMALL GIRL'S DETERMINATION......
26 Aug 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I adored this book about a little girl's determination to have as normal as life as she could (whatever normal means!). It is always interesting to me how much she, and children like her, love and adore their parents, and yet when the going gets tough for the parents they dump their kids, in this instance in an orphanage. I can hardly believe adults are this cruel, but some of them are. I realize the conditions of the Depression were terrible, but I have also read about many, many families who stayed together and somehow made do. Not here. (Read: Little Heathens by Mildren Armstrong Kalish.)
Patty, soon to become Donna, is resilient and hopeful and sad and ambitious all at once. She is a survivor. She apparently harbors no hostility about any members of her birth family or her adoptive family. Indeed, noting the glaring differences in her adoptive family, she is so kind to them, both while they were living and now that they are gone. I loved reading about her and especially about her love story, which has endured for many years. I believe her husband and the love they have shared since their teen years had a huge part in helping this brave girl learn how to live and to love and therefore become an interesting, sweet, kind, and relatively content woman.
Patty, soon to become Donna, is resilient and hopeful and sad and ambitious all at once. She is a survivor. She apparently harbors no hostility about any members of her birth family or her adoptive family. Indeed, noting the glaring differences in her adoptive family, she is so kind to them, both while they were living and now that they are gone. I loved reading about her and especially about her love story, which has endured for many years. I believe her husband and the love they have shared since their teen years had a huge part in helping this brave girl learn how to live and to love and therefore become an interesting, sweet, kind, and relatively content woman.
Patty's Journey
12 Nov 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
As a clinical social worker who has spent most of my professional life relating to adoption,including work with birth families and post-adoption therapy services, I found Patty's chronicle exceptionally well-written--balanced, real, historically informative, educational and very readable. I commend and thank her for providing us with such a sound accounting of one person's adoption journey, an accounting to which so many can relate.
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