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The Chinese Adoption Handbook: How to Adopt from China and Korea Overviews
Adopting a child can be one of life's most rewarding experiences. Unfortunately, complex policies, legal risks, and fewer available children can make a domestic adoption difficult. International adoption offers a solution to parents yearning for a child of their own.
American parents are now adopting over 6,000 children a year from China and Korea. John Maclean's The Chinese Adoption Handbook is a comprehensive guide to adopting a child from China and Korea.
From pitfalls to practical advice, the rewards to the risks, The Chinese Adoption Handbook leads parents through the international maze, including:
- How the international adoption process works.
- How to start the process.
- What you need to know before traveling to China or Korea.
- Making the most out of your trip--the inside scoop on customs, hotels, and shopping.
- The children's homes, the U.S. Consulate visit, and the questions that need to be asked.
- Medical issues, special adoption doctors, and travel requirements.
- Post-adoption procedures and much, much more.
Practical, accurate, and written with a father's sense of humor, The Chinese Adoption Handbook is the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to adoption from China and Korea.
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Customer Review
This book is a tremendous help if you are thinking about Chinese Adoption. It covers everything from the process/paperwork to what to pack -- things you would not think about packing! It reminds you that this is a lifetime commitment and not just a trip to China. The author also gives you tips on how to move the process along and what pitfalls to look for with both the US and Chinese governments. I highly recommend it.
Is the book worth it? The answer is in the title. - KAD0729 - New York
I had to do a double take when looking at the title. Since when are China and South Korea's governments, let alone cultural distinctions, the same? The title heading ("The Chinese Adoption Handbook: How to Adopt from China and Korea,") is like a bad infomercial where they try to sell you "two for the price of one." Get one Asian country, get another even though it's not remotely the same... okay the same as the United States is to South America, but you see my point.
When reading the reviews about cut and paste from Russian adoption guide books and bad editing, I couldn't help but notice that this author looks like he's horribly trying to jump on the "how to" bandwagon of international adoption, which is precisely the thing most supporters of international adoption would cringe at the thought of this procedure to be anywhere close to "bandwagon."
I ask as one of the international adoption supporters to not buy this book. If you can't even separate two distinctive countries, what insightful information could you possibly give a couple wanting to seriously approach international adoption and raising an interracial child?
Much about Chinese adoption; Not much about Korean adoption - foundpoem -
This book is to-the-point lawyerly advice about adopting from China. Maclean writes very litle about Korean adoption (as the title even indicates). If you've looked into Korean adoption at all, you know at least as much as this book covers, and that Korean adoption is quite different from Chinese adoption. However, if you are considering adopting from China, his step-by-step information about the process makes this book well worth it. And much of it applies to international adoption in general. Maclean starts at the beginning of the paperwork process, and continues throughout your trip to China. Included is information about possible medical conditions, typical age-appropriate weight/height/development and what one might expect to see after orphanage, foster care, or care with little (or good) cognitive and physical stimulation.
I recommend this book (and, yes, he is a bit funny), but read others as well. Maclean gives different advice about certain things than do other authors. My husband and I liked this aspect to use as a comparison to others. It gives us the opportunity to see that not everyone views/does every element of the process the same way nor offers the same advice. We can take what is applicable to us from each how-to style adoption book we read.
Nitpick: while I applaud the author for self-publshing, he could use an editor. Too often, information is written then a few paragraphs later the identical few sentences appear. Worse, Maclean contradicts himself by stating at the start of the book that you should pick your agency last--e.g., after the homestudy--then later on describes the agency you've chosen as performing the homestudy, thereby creating the need for choosing the agency first.
Ultimately, I'd give "The Chinese Adoption Handbook" three and a half stars -- four for its comprehensive information, but it loses credibility due, perhaps, to poor editing... but I am left wondering how accurate some of it is. Knowing, as well, that Maclean adopted his children from Russia, I wonder if the information has been gleaned in tidbits and applied to the Chinese process or if he really has taken part in Chinese adoptions.
Update 7/06 -- We ended up finding this book FAR more useful than I would have anticipated. Maclean's advice throughout the entire first half, the "US Paperchase," was very helpful each step of the way. I had pages bookmarked at each juncture we approached (researching agencies, the homestudy, etc).
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