About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherExterminating Angel Press

ISBN-101935259342

ISBN-139781935259343

eBay Product ID (ePID)109307601

Product Key Features

Book TitleThis Is Us : the New All-American Family

Number of Pages288 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2011

TopicPersonal Memoirs, Parenting / Single Parent, Adoption & Fostering, Sociology / Marriage & Family

GenreFamily & Relationships, Social Science, Biography & Autobiography

AuthorDavid Marin

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight8.5 Oz

Item Length7.5 in

Item Width5.5 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

Reviews"In telling the story of how he adopted three young, bicultural children, David Marin is wise, warm, funny, insightful, passionate, persistent, and occasionally (and justifiably) outraged. As a single, middle-aged, affluent man who wanted more than anything to create a family, it should have been simple for him to provide a home for this trust-hungry trio. It was anything but. In This is US, Marin recounts with unsparing honesty and wry humor the formidable challenges he surmounted: a crazy-making bureaucracy, a mean-spirited boss, a suspicious and prejudiced society, and his considerable naivete as a first-time parent. Yet he also shares the joys and victories with which he was richly rewarded, not the least of which is the unconditional love of two boys and a girl whose lives--once constrained by fear, abuse, and neglect--now overflow with happy and intriguing possibilities. This remarkable book should be required reading for anyone who wants to adopt, had been adopted, or works in the adoption field. For the rest of us, it is an eloquent reminder of the primal power of kinship." --RICHARD MAHLER, co-author of Secrets of Becoming a Late Bloomer and "Southwest Storylines" columnist at Desert Exposure "Single dad David Marin's quest to adopt two boys and a girl from the California foster care system brings new meaning to the phrase ‘against all odds.' As he and and his beautiful children--and their happy and healthy lives--demonstrate, there are many ways to create a family. The essential ingredient is love." --JESSICA O'DWYER, author of Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir

SynopsisThe heartbreaking, hilarious, and inspiring story of one man's quest to create a better life for three abandoned children--and himself., It was no mystery why California had 98,000 children stuck in foster care. There were not 98,003 because I was stubborn. When David Marin fell in love with three abandoned children desperately in need of a home, there was only one thing he could do. Give up his relatively carefree life and learn how to become a parent. In the process, he found the future he had always wanted, but he also learned some hard lessons about single-parent adoption, the Kafkaesque side of Social Services, and America's anti-immigrant sentiment: Heartbreaking, funny, and inspiring, This Is US chronicles Marin's quest to create a better life for these children--and for himself.