Darlene Friedman

Darlene is the author of new children's book dealing with international adoption; Eden is a 12-year-old middle schooler.

Darlene: I am a professional communicator with an organization called Soroptimist, an international women’s organization that works on issues affecting women, namely economic empowerment, the elimination of violence, and gender equality. I have worked for Soroptimist for more than 20 years.

Prior to that, I was a middle school teacher. I have a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s in journalism.

Eleven years ago, my husband, Roger Roth, and I adopted our incredible daughter, Eden, from China. My work with Soroptimist and my knowledge of the plight of girls in China strongly influenced our decision.

It’s been the journey of a lifetime. We are incredibly lucky to have the most wonderful daughter any parents could ever wish for. She is smart, funny, talented, and beautiful. Most of all she has a heart the size of Montana and is the kindest person I’ve ever known.

Roger (an illustrator and children’s book author—he did the artwork for this blog!) and I did a book based on our family called Star of the Week, A Story of Adoption, Love and Brownies with Sprinkles. It was released in June 2009 to many very strong reviews. We hope the book will be helpful to other adoptive families as their children begin to face the realities of their beginnings, particularly within a school context.

Eden: I am 11 years old and about to enter 6th grade. I started middle school last year, and it was a pretty hard year. I heard a lot of not nice things about being Chinese, for instance. My mom and I got the idea to do this blog so that girls and their moms would have a place to come and work things out. I hope that my experiences can help other people.

I love music (I play the piano and the viola and have my own quintet called The TREGL 5), animals, and all things Twilight!