“A warm and caring book from a gifted teacher who deeply understands what it means to put her heart, soul, and mind into her teaching. In these times of high-stakes testing, Jane Katch’s holistic approach to working with internationally adopted children and their families provides a compelling counterforce for envisioning what education that deeply meets the diverse social, emotional, and intellectual needs of all children can and should be.”

Diane E. Levin, author of So Sexy So Soon and Teaching Young Children in Violent Times

“This is an important, moving, and beautiful book that shows all of us a unique and powerful method to facilitate young children’s self-discovery and growth. Jane Katch writes with a spare, pure poetry as she tells the delightful, hilarious, and at times terribly sad stories of the adopted children in her class, moving us through a range of emotions and understandings. The great artistry of her writing, her self-reflection and humility, and the way she listens deeply to parents who adopt make this a remarkable book—reading it will leave you changed for the better.”

Joshua Sparrow, MD, coauthor of the Brazelton Way books

“Far Away from the Tigers is a deeply moving account of the challenges faced by teachers who work with children who have been damaged by the biological and social adversities—neglect, abuse, abandonment—commonly experienced by internationally adopted children. Katch explores those challenges through the stories of three kindergarten-age children and their parents, whose hopes, worries, frustrations, and joys she also reveals. To be sure, this is not a story with a happy-ever-after ending, but it is a story of hope and acceptance: hope that these ‘at risk’ children can make significant progress with supportive and loving parents, and acceptance of these children for who they are, not who their parents and teachers want them to be.”--David M. Brodzinsky, coauthor of Being Adopted and The Psychology of Adoption

David M. Bodzinsky