Everything You Need to Know about Being Adopted

Accelerated Reader is a program based on the fact that students become more motivated to read if they are tested on the content of the books they have read and are rewarded for correct answers. Students read each book, individually take the test on the computer, and receive gratification when they score well. Schools using the Accelerated Reader program have seen a significant increase in reading among their students.

This collection of high/low titles serves as a rich resource for your at-risk teens. With the test disk, it also provides an opportunity to reinforce your students' understanding of the material.

Gr 7 Up-In this brief but well-researched overview, Kaminker gives legal facts about adoption and brings up many of the problems adolescent adoptees face: fear that their natural curiosity about their birth parents may hurt their adoptive parents' feelings, jealousy of non-adopted siblings, thoughtless remarks from friends and strangers, etc. Two topics get lost in the brevity; birth fathers and adoption after infancy are barely mentioned. The author's suggestions are sensible; for instance, a support group is strongly advised for teenagers contemplating the difficult process of searching for birth families. Good resources, both organizations and books, are listed. Full-page photographs, most in black and white, show teens and families of various races. Karen Gravelle and Susan Fischer's Where Are My Birth Parents? (Walker, 1993) provides deeper coverage of many topics, but Kaminker's book is inviting and may have more appeal to reluctant readers.-Nancy Schimmel, formerly at San Mateo County Library, CA

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