# Between Light and Shadow: A Guatemalan Girl's Journey Through Adoption - Hardcover

by **Jacob R. Wheeler** (Author), **Kevin Kreutner** (Foreword by)

"An adoption professional once told me, 'At its best, there is no adoption system as good as Guatemala's. At its worst, there is none worse.'"--from the foreword by Kevin Kreutner

In _Between Light and Shadow_ veteran journalist Jacob Wheeler puts a human face on the Guatemalan adoption industry, which has exploited, embraced, and sincerely sought to improve the lives of the Central American nation's poorest children. Fourteen-year-old Ellie, abandoned at age seven and adopted by a middle-class family from Michigan, is at the center of this story. Wheeler re-creates the painful circumstances of Ellie's abandonment, her adoption and Americanization, her search for her birth mother, and her joyous and haunting return to Guatemala, where she finds her teenage brothers--unleashing a bond that transcends language and national borders.

Following Ellie's journey, Wheeler peels back the layers of an adoption economy that some view as an unscrupulous baby-selling industry that manipulates impoverished indigenous Guatemalan women, and others herald as the only chance for poor children to have a better life. Through Ellie, Wheeler allows us to see what all this means in personal and practical terms--and to understand how well-intentioned and sometimes humanitarian first-world wealth can collide with the extreme poverty, despair, misogyny, racism, and violent history of Guatemala.

Jacob Wheeler is a freelance journalist, editor at TheUptake.org, and publisher of the _Glen Arbor Sun_ (Michigan). His writings have appeared in _In These Times_, the _San Francisco Chronicle_, the _Christian Science Monitor_, and the _Chicago Sun-Times_ among other publications. Kevin Kreutner is the father of two children from Guatemala and the chief writer for the popular GuatAdopt.com website.

### Author Biography

Jacob Wheeler is a freelance journalist, editor at TheUptake.org, and publisher of the _Glen Arbor Sun_ (Michigan). His writings have appeared in _In These Times_, the _San Francisco Chronicle_, the _Christian Science Monitor_, and the _Chicago Sun-Times_ among other publications. Kevin Kreutner is the father of two children from Guatemala and the chief writer for the popular GuatAdopt.com website.

**Number of Pages:** 248

**Dimensions:** 0.88 x 8.75 x 5.79 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** April 01, 2011

## Details

- **Price:** 29.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 29.95 USD | In stock |

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- Between Light and Shadow: A Guatemalan Girl's Journey Through Adoption - Hardcover

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