Read the beginning of the Prologue from Between Light and Shadow: A Guatemalan Girl's Journey through Adoption by Jacob Wheeler:

"This is a story about the journey of a girl to the United States from the desperate, poor streets of her home village in Guatemala. It’s about the birth mother who gave her up for adoption because she was pressured and promised money by the lawyers who make Guatemalan adoption so lucrative and so controversial. It is a story about one American family and its journey through international adoption: the guilt, the joy, the premonitions, and the conflicts that unfolded when the characters traveled to Central America and wealth met poverty head-on. It’s also a story about a very poor nation divided by race and class and a bloody history that continues today—and how its people deal with the humiliating perception that the world wants Guatemala more for its children than anything else it has to offer.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Between Light and Shadow by Jacob Wheeler”