After their decision not to have a biological
child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the
foster care system. Despite knowing that the system's goal is
reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry
of social workers who question, evaluate, and ultimately prepare them to
welcome a child into their family--even if it means most likely having
to give them back. After years of starts and stops, and endless
navigation of the complexities and injustices of the foster care system,
a phone call finally comes: a three-day old baby girl, named Coco, in
immediate need of a foster family. Sarah and Eric bring this newborn
stranger home.
"You were never ours," Sarah tells Coco, "yet we belong to each other."
A love letter to Coco, and to the countless children like her, Stranger Care chronicles Sarah's discovery of what it means to mother--in this case, not just a vulnerable infant, but the birth mother who loves her, too. Ultimately, Coco's story reminds us that we depend on family, and that family can take different forms. With "fearless, stirring, rhythmic" (Nick Flynn) prose, Sentilles lays bare an intimate, powerful story, with universal concerns: How can we care for and protect each other? How do we ensure a more hopeful future for life on this planet? And if we're all related--tree, bird, star, person--how might we better live?
"You were never ours," Sarah tells Coco, "yet we belong to each other."
A love letter to Coco, and to the countless children like her, Stranger Care chronicles Sarah's discovery of what it means to mother--in this case, not just a vulnerable infant, but the birth mother who loves her, too. Ultimately, Coco's story reminds us that we depend on family, and that family can take different forms. With "fearless, stirring, rhythmic" (Nick Flynn) prose, Sentilles lays bare an intimate, powerful story, with universal concerns: How can we care for and protect each other? How do we ensure a more hopeful future for life on this planet? And if we're all related--tree, bird, star, person--how might we better live?
404 pages (May 2021)
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Review from Library Journal
Review from The New York Times
Sarah Sentilles introduces Stranger Care (from Text Publishing):
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Title Read-alikes: Rock Needs River: a memoir of a very open adoption by Vanessa McGrady; A Love-Stretched Life: stories on wrangling hope, embracing the unexpected, and discovering the meaning of family by Jilana Goble; Intertwined: a mother's memoir by Kathleen English Cadmus; The Girl in the Red Boots: making peace with my mother by Judith Ruskay Rabinor; You Carried Me: a daughter's memoir by Melissa Ohden; American Baby: a mother, a child, and the shadow history of adoption by Gabrielle Glaser; When the Bough Breaks: true stories of hope and encouragement of mothers who have had to reinvent their relationships with their children by Nancy Ferraro; Don't You Ever: my mother and her secret son by Mary Carter Bishop; Raising Abel by Carolyn Nash; Little Bandaged Days by Kyra Wilder; House of Sticks: a memoir by Ly Tran; Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison; and Why Didn't You Tell Me?: a memoir by Carmen Rita Wong.
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