“Reading Tree Of Strangers I was made aware that I’ve never had more than the most superficial understanding of adoption, a sort of Disney-eque, “Oh isn’t that sweet, someone needing a child to parent, a child needing a parent, two needs met everybody a winner ..” Not. Tree Of Strangers is beautifully written, devoid of the self-consciousness of someone straining to write beautifully. The beauty is found deep in the haunting resonance of Sumner’s observations, both as a testimony of personal experience and then as a journalist’s well researched and well-distilled overview of the greater context. I find it entirely intriguing as a style. I am jolted out of my complacency, and moved, even to tears, and then I am enlightened.”

“Passages of her experience as a young woman in New Zealand offer incredible insight into a fiercely resilient, ambitious and creative human being...

Above all else, what makes this book so striking is its honesty. Sumner speaks unapologetically of a subject so often swept under the carpet, and she does so with a raw veracity. I was left with the impression that pursuit of catharsis is part of the reason Sumner shared this story. And it is perhaps this quality that makes it such a moving and impactful read.”

“Sumner’s sense of imagery, her ability to find the pertinent metaphor, the sheer, low-level rage which colours this book, all make it hard to put down.”

“Barbara Sumner’s Tree of Strangers is, through her sharp intellect and exquisitely cinematic writing, a book of far greater social and literary importance”

“Barbara’s understanding, perspective and focus on the real effects and challenges of adoption - which comes alive in her eloquent writing style - has a way of getting under your skin, but in the positive sense.
Her deeper seeing eye liberates us all from these outdated entanglements of colonial adoption ideas and strategies. With deep and fresh insight, she goes beyond adoption and invites us all to reconsider and reinterpret what it means to be truly human, to be safe - and to genuinely belong in the uncertain world of today.”

“From the opening lines, Barbara Sumner’s Tree of Strangers gripped me on the level of its brilliantly evoked personal story.

This is an author whose intensely visual grasp can do what other books only promise, it actually does transport the reader into scenes and situations so vividly described that they feel like one’s own lived experience.

Here is a privileged journey into a life and a life-long quest born of pain, and full of drama and mystery. That mystery keeps the reader (arguably traps them into) compulsively turning the pages, Barbara’s need to know more about herself, her beginnings, her family becomes our own compulsion.

Tree of Strangers has a lot more on its mind than just Barbara’s own personal story, it takes aim at the whole edifice of stranger adoption and in doing so gives the long-buried other side of a story almost as old as our society, overturning assumptions and pressing on bruises most of us have never stopped to imagine might exist.

Reading Tree of Strangers is to be assailed by revelations legal, moral, narrative and emotional. To say it stays with you is an understatement.”

“ I was so taken by how dexterous Barbara Sumner was in weaving her own sometimes painful and harrowing tale with current adoption policies, making a succinct and brilliant case for radical reform. Riveting, informative and insightful.”

“I opened Tree of Strangers with high expectations of a well-told story that would entertain me.

Once I started however, I could not stop reading. I finished the book in the early hours and thinking about what I read kept me awake for most of the night. I think about it still.

Barbara Sumner’s Tree of Strangers doesn’t simply tell a remarkable story, it shines a harsh light on the way that our society has completely failed to accord the most basic of human rights to adopted children in New Zealand, the right to know who you are and where you are from.

This is an important story, and one that I hope will act as a catalyst to change our laws, to give adopted people their long-overdue rights.”