Maranda Russell

Category: Personal

  • Hate censorship as much as I do? Here is the perfect manga series for you!

    The manga series ‘Library Wars: Love & War’ is primarily a love story, but it delves into some pretty important social problems as well.  The series is based on the novel by Hiro Arikawa, but the manga story and art were created by Kiiro Yumi.  I’ve never read the novel, so I can’t comment on whether the […]

  • Saying goodbye to your foster kids

    Saying goodbye seems to accompany the foster care lifestyle. Sometimes the goodbye is bittersweet because the child is being adopted, or gets to return home. In those cases, you still worry about their future, but you are happy that they will hopefully have a chance at a more stable life.  Sometimes we still get to […]

  • More into literature than news?

    I post the links to many of my news articles here on my blog, but for those of you who are more interested in short stories, poetry and personal essays, you can find some of my writing may be more to your style if you visit my Facebook Poetry and Literature fan page at the following web […]

  • Talk about insensitive! Americans…what are you thinking?

    You would think that most Americans would have the sense to wait a while before they start trying to special-order orphans from Japan, but apparently not.  Tazura Ogaway, the director of the adoption agency Across Japan, has admitted to being a little creeped out by the requests she is getting from Americans.  As Ogaway said […]

  • Do you know which fictional characters were adopted?

    I had such a good response to my list of famous people who were adopted, that I decided to make another list of popular fictional characters who were adopted.  I was surprised to see how many of our favorite childhood heroes were adopted or raised by someone other than their parents.  The reason I decided to […]

  • Which popular fictional characters were adopted? Part 1

    I had such a good response to my list of famous people who were adopted, that I decided to make another list of popular fictional characters who were adopted.  I was surprised to see how many of our favorite childhood heroes were adopted or raised by someone other than their parents.  The reason I decided to make […]

  • Just so you know…

    All of the articles that I post here are written by yours truly.  I know some people thought I was just posting random articles I like, but they are actually my own words…so if you love ’em or hate ’em, you have only me to blame!  I would write more original blog posts if it […]

  • Is the adoption process unnecessarily hard?

    If you deal with the social service system for very long, you will no doubt start to hear complaints (and maybe even form your own) about how intrusive the system can be.  As a foster or potential adoptive parent, you will soon see and experience this firsthand.  Of course, before you can even be considered […]

  • Rough Week

    This has been a rough week at our house.  Due to some unfortunate circumstances we have been forced to request that one of our foster children be removed.  Needless to say, the tension has been riding high.  Tempers are flaring and all of us have probably just about had it with the situation.  Unfortunately, since foster parents are supposed […]

  • ‘The Sea Prince and the Fire Child’ review

    My most recent anime/manga article… Recently I picked up the 30th anniversary edition of the old animated movie, ‘The Sea Prince and the Fire Child’ at our local Dayton Metro Library.  I had never seen this movie or even heard of it, but it looked kind of cute so I figured I would give it […]