Becky Thompson has tackled some of the most complex issues of our time-race, gender, class, and motherhood-in an engaging, sensitive and insightful way. With the microscopic lens of both a good photographer and scientist, she has given her readers beautiful pictures of a bonding between mother and child that is both warm and sensible. Pulling no punches about her anxieties and fears, her growing love for her child and her fear that he may be taken away, she has shown us that love can transcend all boundaries. Mothering Without a Compass is a treasure. A must read.

This is a wonderful book, honest and beautifully told. All the doubt, uncertainty, and changing consciousness of the experience of motherhood is powerfully drawn. Thompson is a writer who is committed to social justice, yet knowledgeable of the psychological and moral complexities that can sometimes, understandably, be erased by political agendas. I read this book and responded to it as a mother, as a feminist, and as a writer.

What is compelling about this book is the author's unique position as a white women describing her experiences as an adoptive mother of an older Black child. Thompson's honesty and uncertainty about whether she is doing the right thing for Adrian, her worries and concerns-all these make this book powerful and important.

In 1997, Thompson, a white lesbian, was asked to take custody of 9-year-old Adrian, an African-American boy, at the request of the boy’s mother. This book chronicles their first year of life together. It's a sweet story that proves while love makes a family, sometimes making a family also creates love. Thompson tackles the issue that you'd expect to come up when a white lesbian adopts a child of color. But she also writes humorously and lovingly about less typical things, like the Hulk action figure she makes disappear.

The beauty of the book is in its universality. The care and energy Thompson invests in teaching Adrian about his culture and others can and should be invested in any child. The implications of accepting ‘instant motherhood’ of an African American boy with a troubled history are huge, yet Thompson embarks with an open mind and heart, doing her utmost to rear the child with all the grace, dignity, and intelligence she can muster. Her experiences are a powerful example.

A lesbian mother talks about the challenges and joys of raising her adopted African American son. Tackles the issues of gender, race, class and motherhood in a sensitive and humorous way.

Thompson eloquently relates the difficulties of bringing up a proud, intelligent and sensitive child in a culture that does not recognize such qualities in African American men. She soon finds that her commitment of raising Adrian in a multicultural, progressive environment is trickier than she had imagined. This memoir will strongly appeal to anyone interested in the complications and pleasures of raising children in a culture of increasingly different and contested ‘family values’.

Written in essay form and from a lesbian standpoint, the story of Thompson and her adopted African American son is less an attempt to obtain answers than to express her feeling that the racial and cultural differences between her and her child cannot be ignored.

Becky Thompson tackles transracial adoption. It’s a sweet story that goes a long way in proving that while love makes a family, sometimes making a family also creates love.

Very moving.