From Publishers Weekly
Silber and Dorner, who have developed and implemented open adoption policies in Texas, here define this unconventional practice as one that "includes the birthparents and adoptive parents meeting one another, sharing full identifying information, and having access to ongoing contact over the years"; they further advocate that the biological parents be considered extended family, like other relatives of the adoptive family. On these terms, suggests this balanced evaluation, adoptees can be spared much of the anguish afflicting those for whom the circumstances of birth remain unknown; birth parents can better cope with their grief and accept their own choice; adoptive parents will almost always be reassured, both because they feel "accepted" by the birth parents and because they better realize that the birth parents will not reverse their decision. Case studies, including letters by involved parties, bolster the authors' practical guidelines as well as their astute analysis of the complex emotions surrounding adoption.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
Finally, a book that examines the effects of open adoption on the children. Two pioneers in the field examine scores of open adoption experiences from infancy to adolescence. Among topics covered: bonding, grief, communication, entitlement, and adoption understanding among children.

Openness in adoption -- of course!, September 20, 2003

We were given this book while we were learning about the process of openness in adoption and nine months later, our child was born to us by his birthparents -- our shared miracle. Back when we were still waiting, reading about open adoption in this book helped my husband and I better understand how this approach to adoption might work in different people's lives. The authors helped us embrace the idea that birthparents could be known in a child's life and be part of a functional extended family. For us, this became true. "Children of Open Adoption" was for us a primer that described the common issues surrounding the concept of openness. This book provided for us the chance to hear from other parents and see how things might play out later in our child's life if we opted for openness. Page by page, we read parts aloud to one another and became more and more convicted that our intuition was right. Openness allowed natural adoption, so that our family would include our child's birthparents. We understood that the amount of openness might be different for each family, but this book helped us also understand the beautiful potential for a normal life that included birthparents and honored both them as life-givers and us as family. For anyone who wants to disagree, I no longer argue. I know that what this book describes, we have. We allowed our trust to grow and we gradually experienced open adoption as a family -- a family that includes our child's birthparents and birthgrandparents, with openness for all of our child's life -- if we are lucky.