Adoptive parents need more than the usual parenting skills. Adoption has changed drastically in recent decades with more concern for the adoptees' point of view and more education required by adoptive parents. Adoptive parents can be bewildered or apprehensive and find themselves struggling in ways they hadn't anticipated.

Thicker Than Blood is a comprehensive yet down-to-earth look at adoptive parenting in the twenty-first century. Author Marion Crook's family includes two adopted sons; in her experience, adoptive parents need to acquire skills, knowledge, and a good sense of humour in order to deal with the emotional upheavals of raising adopted children.

The book looks at all facets of adoption, including its dark history over the past 100 years when it was seen as a lower-class option for desperate parents, or when children were taken from single mothers against their will. Today, adoption is much more open-minded--LGBT adoptive parents and adoptive single parents are now commonplace--yet challenges linger, from adoptive children suffering from PTSD to those dealing with issues of anger and abandonment. Marion Crook gently takes adoptive parents through the process of adoption from childhood to adulthood, helping to demystify the experience with compassion and reassurance.

Meticulously researched but refreshingly free of academic jargon, Thicker Than Blood will enlighten and empower adoptive parents and those who work with adopted children alike.