Between Light and Shadow : University of Nebraska Press : 9780803233621 : 0803233620 : 01 Apr 2011 : ?An adoption professional once told me, ?At its best, there is no adoption system as good as Guatemala's. At its worst, there is none worse.'??from the foreword by Kevin Kreutner  In Between Light and Shadow veteran journalist Jacob Wheeler puts a human face on the Guatemalan adoption industry, which has exploited, embraced, and sincerely sought to improve the lives of the Central American nation's poorest children. Fourteen-year-old Ellie, abandoned at age seven and adopted by a middle-class family from Michigan, is at the center of this story. Wheeler re-creates the painful circumstances of Ellie's abandonment, her adoption and Americanization, her search for her birth mother, and her joyous and haunting return to Guatemala, where she finds her teenage brothers?unleashing a bond that transcends language and national borders.  Following Ellie's journey, Wheeler peels back the layers of