Betty Jean Lifton Dies at 84
RSSBy Rocco Staino
Betty Jean Lifton, an adoption-reform advocate and a children's and young adult author, died November 19 in Boston from complications of pneumonia. She was 84. Although best known as an adoption advocate, during the 1960-1980s Lifton wrote more than 20 books for children and young adults, including Return to Hiroshima (Atheneum, 1970) and A Place Called Hiroshima (Kodansha, 1985), which both dealt with the effects of the atomic bomb on children and were created in collaboration with the Japanese photographer, Eikoh Hosoe. While living in Japan during the 1960s with her husband, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist and author, Lifton wrote books that focused on the Japanese experience. Like the author Eleanor Coerr, who died on November 22, Lifton introduced the American public to Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who is called the Anne Frank of Hiroshima. Sasaki was diagnosed with leukemia after the atomic bomb fell on her city and died 10 years later at the age of 12. Lifton's other books include The Rice-cake Rabbit (Norton, 1966) and The Dwarf Pine Tree (Atheneum, 1963), which included Japanese fo Lifton's own experience as an adoptee and her research on the subject carried into her writing for young adults. Her book, I am Still Me (Knopf, 1981) was written at time when there was little information about adoption geared toward teens. The story is about a teenage girl who realizes she's adopted while completing a homework assignment. The following year, Knopf took advantage of the success of the adoption theme and published Jill Krementz's photo-essay book, How It Feels to be Adopted (Knopf, 1982). Lifton was best known as the author of three classic works about adoption and its psychological impact: Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter (McGraw Hill, 1975); Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience (Dial, 1979), and Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness (Basic Books, 1994). She was born as Blanche Rosenblatt on June 11, 1926 in Staten Island, NY, and adopted by a Cincinnati couple, Oscar and Hilda Kirschner, at the age of two and a half. Lifton is survived by her two children, Kenneth and Natasha Lifton, four grandchildren, and her husband, whom she married in 1952. The couple lived in Cambridge, MA. thanks to Rocco Staino and School Library Journal for giving BJ Lifton the kudos she deserves as an advocate for adoption reform as well as a promoter of children's literacy - two topics related in many intimate and intriguing ways.
* = Required information
Betty Jean Lifton Dies at 84.
lktales and mythical creatures as elements in her stories.
Reader Comments (1)
Posted by T.F. Brosnan on December 16, 2010 01:34:56PM
