Birth Parent Love Portrayed in Domestic Adoption Children's Literature
This thesis examines domestic adoption children’s literature published in the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s, to assess if the authors portrayed birth parent love through narration and/or illustration toward the child relinquished for adoption. The study reveals that over time there is a statistical increase in publications focusing on domestic adoption; however, there is no statistical difference between the three decades studied in the frequency of portrayals of birth parent love for the child relinquished for adoption. In the 1970’s there was one book demonstrating birth parent love and by the 1990’s this number had increased to fourteen. However, in the 1990’s these fourteen books published were a small percentage of the forty one books which were surveyed and which were published in this decade. This research reveals that even though by the 1990’s open adoption had begun to become the most popular method for domestic adoptions, there was still uncertainty present at least in terms of how it was represented in literature directed toward young children.
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