TODAY: Girls Actively Participating!

Tonight, the Girls Actively Participating! (GAP!) art and writing show will be unveiled at Hard Drive Cafe. GAP! is an after-school program for middle school girls that builds skills and self-esteem. It's awesome and so is Amy Manhart, who runs it.

Join the girls in celebrating "WHO WE ARE: An exhibit of self-portraits by the GAP! girls" on Tuesday, March 25, 5-6:30 PM at Hard Drive Cafe.

For more info about GAP! go to: http://gapjh.org.

Sheroes Author Coming to Town!

We just got word from the Teton County Library that young-adult fantasy author Tamora Pierce will be here March 14. For those unfamiliar with Pierce, you’re in for a treat! She fashions female heroes of the kind she wished she could read about in her favorite books as a kid. With encouragement from her father, she started writing when she was in 6th grade. Now she has 25 novels under her belt and is one of the genres most beloved authors.

Here are a few more details from the library about Tamora Pierce: “Often set in the fantasy realm of Tortall, the stories boast strong, courageous girls who, according to School Library Journal, meet ‘success through perseverance, hard work, and skill.’

Pierce's own success as a fantasy novelist for teens has landed her numerous awards including multiple ALA Best Book for Young Adults honors, as well as #1 book debuts on the New York Times bestseller list. She cofounded www.SheroesCentral.com, a discussion board about female heroes and remarkable women in fact, fiction and history.

One of her most recent books White Tiger (September, 2007) is a graphic novel written with her husband Timothy Liebe for Marvel Comics. Her next books are due out in 2009. To learn more about Pierce's many stories or read her blog, go to www.TamoraPierce.com.

An Evening with Tamora Pierce takes place on Friday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the library's Ordway Auditorium. Sponsored by Teton County Library Foundation, seats will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis, with doors opening at 7 p.m. Valley Book Store will have books on hand for a signing following Pierce's talk.


The realities of adoption

This article from the Chicago Tribune discusses the problem some birth mothers have with the movie "Juno." Many of these women feel it did not realistically portray the emotional issues surrounding adoption.

""['Juno'] gives the impression that one can hand a baby off
to strangers, have a few tears at the time the baby is born, and then the next
day get on with your life as if nothing happened. That is of great, great
concern to me," says Mirah Riben, a board member at
Origins-USA, a national organization for
birth mothers, or women who place their children for adoption."I think that's a
terrible, terrible message to get across to teenagers and their
families.""
"There are no large, representative studies of contemporary
American birth mothers, a group that voluntarily relinquishes an estimated
13,000 to 14,000 infants each year, according to a 2006 report by the Evan B.
Donaldson Adoption Institute.One of the best existing studies, published in 1993
by Columbia University researchers,
found that 38 percent of birth mothers felt a lot of grief six months after
relinquishment, 46 percent felt some or "a little" grief and 16 percent felt no
grief."
"Four years after placing their babies, 74 percent of mothers
in a Columbia University study felt "a lot of peace" about the decision. In the
same study, 9 percent of mothers reported feeling no peace about the
decision."

Apparently open adoption (where the birth mother has some contact with the adoptive family) can reduce the level of grief and regret to some degree.

While back in my home state over the holidays, I met up with a good friend who had an unplanned pregnancy in college and gave her child up for adoption. We talked about it and she said she's doing pretty well now (10+ years later) but that she was depressed and even suicidal for a long time. She had contact with the adoptive family for 2 years, but chose to cut off contact after that. She knows where the family lives and has declined job opportunities in our hometown for fear of running into her son and/or his family. And now that she has finally found some peace with her decision, she and her husband are considering starting their own family.

Adoption is a brave, unselfish choice. Those who deal with their unplanned pregnancies by giving their child up for adoption deserve a full education regarding their choice and should be warned that they may need counseling or other emotional and mental health support long after the baby has joined its new family.