A Child in the Middle

by Catherine Chanter

This is no ordinary book about adoption. It is a book which brings together both a personal and professional perspective in a rich and insightful exploration of adoption.

At it's core is Catherine Chanter’s own intimate story of her search for her birth parents, a journey with as many twists and turns as a nail-biting detective story , but Catherine has spent her working life sitting on adoption panels and supporting vulnerable children from fractured families and has acquired a wealth of knowledge and understanding. Case studies, historical documents, poems, and poignant correspondence come together along with moments of great joy, and of profound loss.

Interleaved are delicate vignettes showing Catherine’s close ties to the landscape and her reflections on what nature tells us about resilience, roots and revival.

This book is for everyone interested in or touched by adoption. It speaks to you all from a base of acknowledgement, wisdom, and honesty.

356 pages, Paperback

First published June 14, 2022

About the author

Catherine Chanter is a teacher, poet, and short story writer. She is the winner of the Yeovil Poetry Prize and the Lucy Cavendish Prize awarded by Cambridge University. She grew up in the West Country before attending Oxford.

Reviews

[Clair's Books]

📚 111/36
📍 🇬🇧
📆 6th November 2022

A memoir exploring the journey and search of the author’s birth parents.

Catherine was “chosen” by her adopted family in 1959. At the age of 50, she applies for a copy of her original birth certificate, finding her recorded name is different.

After hesitant and sporadic contact with her birth mother over many years, Catherine finds she has more in common with her than she expected.

Written through 2 timelines (>2009 & >2020), including poetry, nature and the authors personal experience in working with Looked After Children. Exploring themes including identity and sense of self. Throughout the book, she shows how attitudes, process and the experience of adoption has changed from then to now.

I enjoyed the email correspondence that the author shared. It’s definitely an eye-opener to see how different others’ lives are to your own.

Quotes

💬 “I never was a package in your pass the parcel game”
💬 “If you believe by changing the name, you will change the child, then you are deluding yourself”

Printed copy received from Author via Love Book Tours.

[Bianca Duthie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a piece of work that could be very difficult to read. Catherine does not shy away from the tough reality she has faced through her adoption.
Her tale is told through words, emails and poems shared between Catherine and her birth mother.
Catherine has worked on adoption panels for a long time and has extensive knowledge on the areas of which she speaks. For me, it was a little strange as Scotland has a slightly different system to England with our Children's Hearing System but it was really interesting to see how Catherine's work impacted her own experience of finding her birth family.
There's so much more that could be explored here, perhaps Catherine will continue her story in a future book. I'd love to know more about Sally, Thomas and if any of her paternal family ever did reach out.
A wonderful read.

[kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an interesting read but it was also quite hard to read at times, I have seen the adoption process and care system in England through my family and it is never easy but that didn't stop me shedding tears at this book.
The writing style was interesting as the format of the book was told through a series of correspondance between Catherine and her birth mother.
There was so much to unpack with this book and in some aspects I felt like I would have liked to have known more or had a bit more detail and that went for some of the people in the book also, however, it was such an intereting read that I learnt a lot from and I definitely would recommend it.