Amazon.com description: Product Description: Adoption: A Basic Guide to Adoption is a helpful book about the joys and struggles of adoption. Adoption is defined as taking a child that is legally free from another family through legal means and raising as one s own child. Author Karen Jean Matsko Hood is the mother of sixteen children. She has firsthand experience which includes adopting from the U.S. Adoption agencies, from the U.S. foster system and from international countries. Her family includes 5 biological children and 11 adopted children from the U.S. adoption agencies the foster system and from other countries of different races in a rainbow of colors. Her experience with her own family provides a wealth of information to others considering adoption. She uses research along with her own family experiences. There are books in the Hood Adoption Guide Book Series that provide helpful information.