Coventry Village Branch of Heights Libraries

Adoption Network Cleveland and Mac's Backs Books are pleased to welcome award-winning author and advocate Rhonda Roorda to Cleveland!
Join us on Saturday, September 26 at 2:00 pm for an Author Talk and Book Signing. Rhonda will be sharing her debut memoir,&nbsp;Torn from the Root.
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.&nbsp;Torn from the Root&nbsp;is her illuminating story of identity, belonging, and purpose and 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&nbsp;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.
This event promises to be an engaging and illuminating session for anyone interested in or impacted by adoption, foster care, or transracial adoption.
Credit is available for licensed foster parents.
This event is FREE, but space is limited.
About the Author
Rhonda M. Roorda,&nbsp;M.A., is a nationally recognized speaker, author, and consultant on transracial adoption whose insights have been featured on&nbsp;Good Morning America&nbsp;and&nbsp;ABC News, in&nbsp;People&nbsp;magazine, and in the Emmy Award–winning television series&nbsp;This Is Us. A transracial adoptee, she is the author of the acclaimed&nbsp;In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption, recognized as a&nbsp;Choice&nbsp;Outstanding Academic Title, and the coauthor of a groundbreaking trilogy on transracial adoption. Through her writing, research, and speaking, Roorda has become a leading voice exploring identity, belonging, and the lifelong impact of adoption across racial and cultural boundaries. She lives in Michigan with her family.

Local Event: Rhonda Roorda Author Talk & Book Signing 

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Rhonda Roorda Author Talk & Book Signing 

Adoption Network Cleveland and Mac's Backs Books are pleased to welcome award-winning author and advocate Rhonda Roorda to...

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Cinematheque (Cleveland Institute of Art)

Early in her career, Yiddish theater star Molly Picon traveled to Vienna to make films. The earliest to survive is East and West, a blend of comedy, romance and cross-cultural collision. Picon plays an Americanized young Jewish woman whose independent outlook (and pugilistic interests) clash with the Old World traditions of her Eastern European relatives. Jacob Kalich (Picon’s real-life husband) co-stars as a shy yeshiva scholar, while Sidney M. Goldin appears as Molly’s tradition-minded father. This special presentation features live original music composed and performed by world-renowned klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and celebrated silent film pianist Donald Sosin. September 15, 2026, 7:30 pm, The Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art. $25/$20 Cinematheque and CSFF members.

Local Event: Molly Picon stars in East and West (1923) with live score by Alicia Svigalls and Donald Sosin

Molly Picon stars in East and West (1923) with...

Early in her career, Yiddish theater star Molly Picon traveled to Vienna to make films. The earliest to survive is East and...

Molly Picon stars in East and West (1923) with live score by Alicia Svigalls and Donald Sosin

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Rhonda Roorda Author Talk & Book Signing

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26

2:00 PM

Coventry Village Branch of Heights Libraries, 1925 Coventry Rd, Cleveland, OH

Molly Picon stars in East and West (1923) with live score by Alicia Svigalls and Donald Sosin