Since the late 1980s, as many as 7,000 Chinese-born girls have been adopted annually and now live in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. They are officially orphans, victims of a rigorous birth control policy limiting most families to one child. Punishing disincentives, rural tradition and outright sexism means that girls are often passed over in favour of boys. These memoirs are organised by the intrinsic logic of experience - a woman contemplates her daughters lost heritage during a visit to a temple, a mother explores grief among those abandoned. Powerful and moving.