Magic Lessons: Celebratory and Cautionary Tales About Life As A (Single, Gay, Transracially Adoptive) Dad

Every family has a story—but very few have a story like Joseph Sadusky and his sons, Daveon and Mark. In Magic Lessons, Joe shares a look back as he, a single gay man, decided to build his family through transracial adoption. In a lighthearted collection of stories and lessons learned, Joe humorously but honestly describes the process as he set out to adopt two older children, and what happened after they came together under one roof and became “us.” Along the way, Joe details how often he was, in his own words, “amazed, aggravated, mind-blown, jaw-dropped, befuddled, exasperated, and awed—both in good ways and bad, both by my kids and by the many players who have had a part in our family story overall.” Among these players are members of the majority—racial, cultural, and otherwise—who taught Joe many bewildering, if not outright painful, lessons about being “other.” To complete the picture, Joe reflects on his own mistakes made as he has ventured through the land of alt-parenthood.