Melissa Fay Greene

Describes how the police shooting of an unarmed black man inspired Thurnell Alston, an unemployed father of four, to protest and ultimately change his corner of the rural South.

With four children of their own, Atlanta journalist Greene (There Is No Me Without You) and her husband, a criminal defense attorney, gradually adopted five more--one from Bulgaria and four from Ethiopia--to create a roiling, largehearted family unit.

Dispatches from the new front lines of parenthood When the two-time National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene confided to friends that she and her husband planned to adopt a four-year-old boy from Bulgaria to add to their four children at home, the news threatened to place her, she writes, "among the greats: the Kennedys, the McCaughey septuplets, the von Trapp family singers, and perhaps even Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, who, according to the Guinness...

The author relates her experience with reactive attachment disorder, something her internationally adopted daughter suffered from, and explains how her family managed to form a loving bond with their daughter.