03/08/2026
Coming July 2026.....Torn from the Root: A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee by Rhonda M. Roorda in partnership with Temple University!
Pre-order your copy today using the discount code‼️
This book is my debut Memoir, and it comes to you out of the mouth of little girl Rhonda. It is transparent, beautiful, bold, edgy, heartbreaking, nuanced, and inspiring. This book is for every adoptee, adoptive parent, non-adopted sibling, foster child, and welfare organization, as well as communities from all backgrounds, and for the general public. Nothing is left on the table! ♥️
A powerful journey of identity and belonging
Torn from the Root
A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee
Rhonda M. Rhonda Mae Roorda
As a Black child adopted out of the New York foster care system as a toddler and raised by
white Evangelical parents, Rhonda Roorda had to learn how to walk in two different worlds. She
often questioned “whether my skin was too dark” and if she “acted too white.” She recalls being haunted by feelings of shame and not “being enough.” Torn from the Root, her illuminating story of identity, belonging, and purpose, lays bare the deep pain she felt navigating life as a vulnerable Black girl and how she healed herself.
Roorda suffered trauma and abuse in her youth, but she also developed resilience. Eventually, she resolves to find her birth family and takes readers on her exciting and agonizing journey.
Torn from the Root thinks critically about the child welfare system and the long-term impacts of transracial adoption. Roorda helps readers understand her experience, posing necessary questions about the challenges of transracial adoption. Her emotional story, full of wisdom and reflection, recounts how she “accepted the truth” of her adoption and found balance, not discomfort, in her own skin.
Rhonda M. Roorda, M.A., is an international speaker and consultant on transracial
adoption. Her insights have been featured in the Emmy award-winning TV show This Is Us. She
is the author of the acclaimed In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption,
recognized as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, and the coauthor of a trilogy of
groundbreaking books on transracial adoption.
General Interest / Memoir / Race and Ethnicity / African American Studies / Women’s Studies
July 2026
250 pages, 8 halftones, 6 x 9”
Cloth ISBN 978-1-4399-2793-9 $30.00T £TK
AO: In Reunion, Adoption Memoirs
https://tupress.temple.edu/books/torn-from-the-root
