Betty Jean Lifton

Betty Jean Lifton was an American author known for her children's books and books about the experiences of adopted children.

Biography
Lifton née Kirschner was born on June 11, 1926, in Staten Island, New York. She was born to Rae Rosenblatt and adopted at the age of two by Oscar and Hilda Kirschner. She graduated from Barnard College in 1948. In 1952 she married the psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton with whom she had two children.

The couple resided in Japan and Hong Kong for several years the early 1960s. Around this time Lifton began writing children's books including Joji and the Dragon Morrow, 1957, The Dwarf Pine Tree, Atheneum, 1963, and The Rice-cake Rabbit  W.W. Norton & Company, 1966.

In 1973 her book Children of Vietnam was a finalist for the National Book Award for Children's Books.

In 1975 Lifton published Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter which was about her search for her birth mother. The book received attention from people who had undergone similar experiences. This, in turn, influenced Lifton to become an open adoption advocate. Lifton wrote two more books about adoption Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience, Dial, 1979, and Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness Basic Books, 1994.

In the 1990s Lifton earned a Ph.D. from Union Institute.

She died on November 19, 2010, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her papers are in the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe.