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'The Daughter of Dreams' Floats on Wave of Adoption Magic

TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The book might have been called, "Why Adoption Freaks Us Out." And that's what one might expect from the author of "Infertility Sucks! Keeping it all together when sperm and egg stubbornly remain apart." Instead, Beverly Barna's second book, The Daughter of Dreams, is as light and bright as its title. If Infertility Sucks! goes straight for the belly laughs, The Daughter of Dreams goes straight for the heart.

Where Infertility Sucks! boasts a glowing frog that brings to the infertile Browns a tadpole that might - just might - turn into the baby they long for, The Daughter of Dreams is home to a bale of magic turtles, who indeed bring a baby to her waiting mother. In this case, there is no "might;" just right.

And that, says the author, is the point. "To me," says Barna, "adoption is magic. But it's hard to describe the experience in its scope and majesty to those who have not been touched by it in some direct way. It's like seeing a magician move Niagara Falls from North America to the Gobi desert, and trying to relate the experience to someone who was not there."

Barna set out to write an adoption book for her daughter, whom she and her husband adopted in China in 2001. But once the writing was underway, additional inspiration took hold. "I saw this as a medium through which to communicate universally that adoption and the children it brings to their families is not a consolation prize, which unfortunately, is often the way our culture sees things."

So why does adoption freak us out? We're conditioned to value biology over all else, the author says. She points to the story of Moses as illustrative of both perspectives. On one hand, the biblical stalwart touches on adoption. On the other, it sends a message about the primacy of biology.

As for The Daughter of Dreams? "There is a baby in a basket," Barna says. "And there are two mothers. I wouldn't say the sea parts, but it does get crossed in a monumental and momentous way." And therein, she says, lies the magic - of the book and of adoption itself.

The moral of the story?

"To tell my daughter what every mother wants her child to know: 'You are loved, more than you can ever imagine.' "

E-mail author and National Infertility Survival Day® founder Beverly Barna at infertilitysucks@aol.com.

SOURCE Beverly Barna Books