Pieces of Me: Who do I Want to Be - Softcover

Pieces of Me is edited by Robert L. Bert Ballard, PhD, an Operation Babylift adoptee from Vietnam, who wishes he had this book as a teen to know he wasn't alone and what he was feeling was normal. Bert is a Vietnamese adoptee evacuated from Vietnam in April 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War. His passion is the adoptee voice. He has helped co-found two adoptee organizations and has served on a variety of boards for adoption. He is a sought-after speaker for both adoptive parents and adoptees having given hundreds of presentations across the nation. He is also widely published on adoption, in magazines, popular books, and academic journals. Pieces of Me, Who Do I Want to Be? and it is a compilation he edited specifically for adopted teens. It has also been used by therapists and parents as an authentic voice of adoptees. He currently lives in Southern California where he is an associate professor at Pepperdine University. He is married with two daughters and an adopted son from Vietnam.

Pieces of Me is good for teen adoptees because it portrays common adoptee feelings. Reading about people experiencing the same situations is comforting to teenagers, who live in a judgmental world. The style of the book is more interesting than a textbook or self-help book and will capture your attention. Nothing is more valuable then being able to know that there are people just like you in the world who are feeling the exact same way about their lives. Yoselin Corrales, 19, adopted from Tegucigalpa at 9 months, sophmore at Nebraska Wesleyan pursuing a double major in Vocal Performance and Psychology........................ I really enjoyed reading Pieces of Me. It makes me feel good to know there is someone else that feels the same way I sometimes feel. It s like there is a missing piece of me and I have now realized that a lot of adoptees feel that way. Every story is different, but they are the same too. I am happy to have this book! Jazz Pyne, 12, adoptee from China, budding musician ..................... Looking at the wide range of articles and topics in this book, this will be an invaluable book for our agency. We will definitely use it in our home study classes as we educate new families and we will encourage our older adoptees to purchase a copy. It will give many young people a voice. Julie Craft, Founder Adoption Support Center, Inc. .................... Pieces of Me is a powerful compilation I want to share with all the youth I work with in Get Real a group of youth in foster care. Each teen has expressed at least a part of everything in this book about identity and fitting in. As an adoptive mom of a 23 year-old, Columbian born daughter, I am sharing the book with her. We have lived the pieces and will continue to do so. --Valli Baba Spahn, MPA, LSW Child Centered Recruitment Coordinator Adoption Network Cleveland

Who was it that said relevance is talking to a man in the language of the man about what is in the heart of the man? By the power of that definition, Pieces of Me is hugely relevant. Created by adoptees for teen adoptees this book describes a unique culture as spontaneously as birds cry out warnings, make nests and sing. What are the pieces of the adoptive experience? Describing who, what and why things need to be found, what has been stolen, fitting the pieces together and sharing the pieces. There is no way you can be indifferent to it. Each story, poem, song or image is different, intimate and challenging. The contents is layered, just like human experience and collectively offer a relieving lifeline, I'm here to tell you, you're not alone. The point is adopted people have a connection through a culture all their own, a unique space they share only with others who have been moved from one family and perhaps country to another without choice. In the process they have lost their first culture, family, language, religion and the identity they would have had. Equally connecting is the unique need to combine the inheritances of both birth and adoptive cultures and fit in to wherever they find themselves, building a healthy identity based on wholeness. Pieces of Me is a much needed contribution to the world of adoption books for teens and has plenty to say to adults. Perhaps the best advise for parents is to read it yourself and leave it on the coffee table just waiting to be discovered by you know who. --Gail Steinberg, co-author Inside Transracial Adoption, adoption professional and adoptive parent

As I read Pieces of Me: Who I Want To Be?, I was moved to tears again and again. As a psychologist who works with many foster and adopted children, I recognized the deep pain that so many of the children have endured and some continue to experiences. I am struck by the courage of these individuals to be authentic, to not sugar-coat their experiences or to focus only on the challenges of adoption. Pieces of Me is for parents who wonder what their child might be going through. It is for adoptees of all ages who want to know their feelings are normal and to find gems of wisdom from others who have journeyed this path before them. --Kali Miller, PhD Corinthia Counseling Center, Inc. Licensed Psychologist