Ladybug Love: 100 Chinese Adoption Match Day Stories

by Kat LaMons, Trish Diggins (Contributor)

Through the stories of individual families, "Ladybug Love" chronicles both the challenges of international adoption – crushing paperwork, dueling bureaucracies, and the agony of seemingly endless waiting - and the unique, universal moment of a parent seeing the face that becomes family.

Genres: Adoption

250 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2013

About the author

With nearly two decades in the field of adoption, Kat LaMons brings an extensive knowledge of adoption processes and post-adoption issues. In addition to direct work with adoptive families, Kat shepherded a cultural school for adoptees and created an adoption-focused distance-learning curriculum used throughout the United States and seven foreign countries. She is also a former columnist for Adoption Today magazine.

Kat and her writing partner, Trish Diggins, have released three projects together, Ladybug Love: 100 Chinese Adoption Match Day Stories, The New Crunch-Time Guide to Parenting Language for Chinese Adoption, and The New Crunch-Time Guide to Parenting Language for Haitian Adoption - all published by Marcinson Press.

Reviews

[The Author Visits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: The Author Visits received this book from the authors in return for an honest review.

The Author Visits doesn't normally accept requests to review non-fiction works but I couldn't pass this book up. There is something about a series of stories that touch the humanity in all of us and that is very hard not to embrace.

Ladybug Love is one such book. I have no experience about the process of adoption nor do I know what it feels like to wait for that moment when a phone call can change the course of a life, to go from being singular to plural. I have no sense of the apprehension and toll waiting can take for that one magical match call on the parents to be.

To me, these are experiences of being those special parents who have immeasurable hope for a dream that I am so lucky to have shared in Ladybug Love.

Reading the many stories about match day was both heart wrenching and uplifting as couples described their experiences. I cannot lie when I say I laughed and cried in equal measure as one story after the next described the years, months, weeks, days and hours before the agency calls came and dreams of becoming parents were finally realized.

Ladybug Love is one tale after another of never-ending hope and resilience in the most simplest stories evoking all sorts of emotional highs and lows. I am so pleased Kat and Trish shared their lovely little treasure trove of wishes coming true.

Simply written with a high-impact quotient, I highly recommend Ladybug Love: 100 Chinese Adoption Match Day Stories. Think of this book as the Chicken Soup for everybody's soul. It's perfect in every way a good book should be with a great plot, lots of twists and turns and filled with emotions a hundred times over.

All good things do come to those who wait and the stories in this anthology are proof of that apt adage.

My rating - a must read!

[Larry Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories!
Make sure you have tissues.

[Carla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, I wasn't impressed with this book. First, although the focus of this book was on the match day, I thought the stories would've been better had they included more of the couples' stories both before and after the match. I think that if they had cut it down to half the number of stories and put a little bit more background on how the couples got to the point of receiving their match, it would've been better. Some of the stories did hint at what brought them to that day, but others made no mention of anything other than receiving the match. Also, with so many stories saying basically the same thing, it started to sound a bit formulaic and by the end, I was bored with reading it. Also, I was put off by how some parents saw adopting a special needs child as a way of getting their child quicker, but several of them started turning down matches because the special needs wouldn't work with their "hectic" lifestyle.

[Darlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as a give away on the Good-reads First read giveaway .I recommend this book highly it was one of those books I just couldn't put down once I started reading it.It Gave a warm fuzzy feeling and the adoption stories were awesome. I hope there is a sequel to this book because it leaves a reader wanting more.

[Cherie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. So many emotional stories. Definitely worth reading.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!