Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Awakening East by Johanna Garton Awakening East by Johanna Garton. I read a lot, but I rarely do book reviews on the blog because I feel I don’t do them justice. There is one company though I do it with because I adore them. This is one of those. I have a huge variety of books I love. One day you’ll find me reading a true-crime book, the next a romance, and after that a local history book. I do like my variety. Awakening East by Johanna Garton is one of those. It’s based on true events and was fantastic! I have no experience with adoption personally or even traveling overseas, so the next best thing to me to touching either is reading all about it. Awakening East by Johanna Garton. COLORADO FAMILY EMBARKS ON UNIQUE YEAR LONG ADVENTURE TO CHINA Johanna Garton explores adopted children’s roots in her poignant memoir “Awakening East” DENVER, CO — Just a few years after adopting son, Will, and daughter, Eden, from China, Johanna Garton and her husband made the decision to move their family across the world for one year to fully immerse themselves in their children’s culture and place of origin. Awakening East ( Oct. 23 ; Marcinson Press) is the result of their epic adventure. Beginning as a series of blog posts, Awakening East began to develop into a tale of humor, hardships and life lessons after Garton dived more deeply into the backstory and emotional journey each family member experienced while living abroad. “We were each going through the same stressful situations in moving to a new country, but we had our own journey to overcome struggles,” says Garton. “When plunked in a foreign country and depending only on each other, the processes we each went through were amplified.” While their year in China gave Garton broadened wisdom and understanding, she says her most memorable experience was visiting her son’s orphanage and daughter’s foster family. “We adopted both children at the age of 12 months, so being able to piece together more details from the first year of their lives was invaluable.” Garton’s hopes her memoir will inspire readers to understand that adoption doesn’t always have to be a backup plan, but another wonderful option in the choice of becoming a parent. She says, “At the end of the day, having a child call you Mom or Dad is the most important thing, isn’t it?” About Johanna Garton. Johanna Garton fills her days as owner of Missionworks Consulting, a nonprofit management consulting firm in Denver. She leads workshops for parents on traveling back to China through the Chinese Heritage Camp in Denver through Regis University. For those looking for something a little more close to home, Johanna also developed Kids Yoga Speak while preparing for her year in China. The program is based on Total Physical Response and teaches children Chinese by incorporating the language into a yoga routine. You can follow Johanna Garton on facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn and her personal website. My Personal Thoughts on Awakening East by Johanna Garton. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first read what Awakening East by Johanna Garton was about. I knew I’d be reading about their year in China, but otherwise, I was walking in blindly. Little did I know that Johanna would be dipping us into her full life before children and husband and then after husband and children. I loved that we got the full back story that led them to moving and living in China for a full year. Throughout the book, I felt like was walking right beside Johanna, experiencing everything she had experienced. Did you know that China at one time only allowed one child per household? Which is why Johanna and her husband wanted to adopt in China. Usually, Chinese families only wanted boys to take care of them when they got older, so often it was little girls that were put up for adoption. Which is why Johanna and her husband were shocked when their first-born was a boy. Taking the big leap to live in China for a full year so their two children could experience their born world in so much more depth is an amazing tell. Not only did they live in China for a full year, but while living in China they did much exploring and vacations while they could to take full advantage of living overseas for that full year. If you have any interest in Chinese culture, adoption or just real-life stories, you’ll want to pick up Awakening East by Johanna Garton yourself. I loved every single minute of it and I can bet you will too. You’ll probably learn a thing or two about other countries customs as well. Johanna Garton. Garton's research is impressive and should broaden the book's appeal far beyond those familiar with its subject. Expect demand. where fans of Jon Krakauer's now classic Into Thin Air are to be found. - Booklist. A fascinating tribute that is riveting and heartrending. - Jenni Lowe-Anker, author. An eloquent, fast-paced narrative. - Mark Stevens, author of The Allison Coil Mystery Series. Gripping and powerfully written . - Luis Benitez, mountain guide. A dramatic and inspiring adventure story based on the lives of trailblazing mountaineer Christine Boskoff and her partner Charlie Fowler. Edge of the Map traces Christine’s life as a high-altitude climber and mountain guide - from a two-day climbing course while a Lockheed engineer in Atlanta to her remarkable leadership of Seattle’s Mountain Madness guiding company following Scott Fischer’s death on Mount Everest in 1996. She was a rarity at the time - a woman leading otherwise all-male expeditions. Despite challenges both personal and professional, Christine persevered to find freedom and a balance with nature on the earth’s wildest peaks. And, in legendary Colorado rock climber Fowler, she discovered her perfect partner. Edge of the Map captures each step of the pair’s story, culminating in their disappearance among the remote peaks of western China and the desperate search to find them which gripped the world. Available for pre-order from IndieBound (use ‘Buy on IndieBound’ button) or pre-order a signed copy directly from Johanna. Awakening East. You don't have to be an adoptive parent or ever have thought about adoption to truly enjoy the story of this family's year returning to China. First of all - living in China! That is huge, but to imagine all the emotions revolving around bringing your adopted kids back to their home country. What a gift. I am so impressed that this is the author's first book. There were a couple of typos in my copy, which I'm told have already been resolved. It took me a couple of chapters to sink into Garton's w You don't have to be an adoptive parent or ever have thought about adoption to truly enjoy the story of this family's year returning to China. First of all - living in China! That is huge, but to imagine all the emotions revolving around bringing your adopted kids back to their home country. What a gift. I am so impressed that this is the author's first book. There were a couple of typos in my copy, which I'm told have already been resolved. It took me a couple of chapters to sink into Garton's writing style, but once I did, it was a delightful ride. I loved her honesty about how hard and yet exhilarating her journey as a mother has been. Recommend, and I'd love to see what this author might write next. . more. A well-written and introspective look at a family's adventure to China and other parts of Asia. The author and her husband adopted two children from China and decided to travel back there to live for a year, reintroducing their children to their birth country. Living in Kunming, China for a year had its ups and downs, but Garton and her husband continually reminded each other why they embarked on the adventure in the first place. It helped that the author spoke some Mandarin and she encouraged he A well-written and introspective look at a family's adventure to China and other parts of Asia. The author and her husband adopted two children from China and decided to travel back there to live for a year, reintroducing their children to their birth country. Living in Kunming, China for a year had its ups and downs, but Garton and her husband continually reminded each other why they embarked on the adventure in the first place. It helped that the author spoke some Mandarin and she encouraged her children to learn, by placing them in the local schools. It was especially heartwarming to read about the reunions between her son and the nannies at the daycare where he lived for the first year of his life, and the daughter's visit to her first home. I found this book interesting because it reminded me of my own overseas adventures with two children in tow. Like the author, I also wanted my children to experience the world and its many unique cultures. I recommend this book for anyone considering moving abroad with their own children. . more. Book Review: Awakening East. I received a free copy of Awakening East by Johanna Garton to review. As I’ve mentioned previously, I do not have an Amazon affiliate account. If you decide to purchase the book, I suggest you look it up on Amazon using the Love Without Boundaries affiliate link because I feel that LWB would benefit more from a couple of dimes than I would. Awakening East is a memoir written by an adoptive mother of two through China’s original non-special needs program. When her children were 11 and 4, her family moved to China to live for a year. While Johanna seems to have always had the travel bug, this move was driven in a large part by her desire for her children to be able to connect with their birth culture. Johanna and her husband paid a lot of attention to their pre- adoptive training. She is very sensitive to the emotions that her children might have as adoptees. Her son attends a Mandarin immersion school. Her love and care for her children shines through in the book. During the first third of the book, Johanna shares a bit about her college-aged self and experiences traveling in Asia as a young adult. Next, she moves on to the adoption stories of both of her children. I loved the excitement she and her husband felt upon finding that they would be adopting a boy from China during their first adoption. They got caught in the slowdown during the second adoption. I’m assuming they had an early 2006 LID because it took three years for them to receive the referral of their daughter, and she shares their struggles with the wait. The rest of the book focuses on their year in China. I really enjoyed the book, which was well written and entertaining, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. Johanna writes that they really didn’t want to be in a big east coast city, but preferred a location in the central or south for a more authentic Chinese experience. Her son was from Kunming and she was eventually able to find a teaching location there. However, she says that living there was “difficult” (in the biggest apartment in the city with a housekeeper/cook?) so they traveled at least monthly to many different countries in Asia where they saw the sights and enjoyed a break. Towards the end of the book they stopped in Shanghai where she felt the decision to reject east coast living was justified because they found it so western. I guess I don’t feel that living in Des Moines is any more authentically American than living in Chicago so I disagree that life in Beijing, Shanghai, or Nanjing is less authentically Chinese. It’s simply different. Garton has a great sense of humor, so I was looking forward to many amusing anecdotes of an American family adjusting to life in China. Instead, I felt like I was reading far more about Thailand, Burma, or India than China. I can see where the trips they took outside of China would stand out in her memory more than daily life, but I would have liked to hear more of the day to day details. The largest amount of their time in China recounted in Awakening East regards their trips to her son’s orphanage (Kunming) and daughter’s foster family (Fuzhou, Jiangxi). I know that families who adopted from those areas will really enjoy the details about those trips. Families handle the privacy issue in differently, but I was a little uncomfortable reading so much information about the exact details of her children’s abandonment, their life before adoption, and even her son’s journal entry giving his feelings on the orphanage visit. He is old enough that I’m sure she got his permission to share within the book, but I would not personally have shared as much information as she chose to. However, I did appreciate how much she shared about her feelings on these important trips. I know any adoptive parent could relate to the anxiety around such a big occasion and wanting to get every bit of information from the trip as possible while also being concerned about your child’s emotional well-being. All in all, I found Awakening East to be an entertaining read which was a nice change from my usual heavy fare. I think adoptive parents will enjoy it.