Jan de Hartog is that rarity, a man determined to practice what he preaches…. "The Children" is an informal, loosely written collection of "random notes" on the first several months [after he adopted two Korean children].

At its best, the book should be required reading for any couple contemplating such an adoption. It offers intelligent advice on the many pitfalls peculiar to adoptions involving Asian orphans….

Annoyingly, de Hartog insists on interlarding "The Children" with an embarrassing amount of cloying sentimentality and often irrelevant anecdotes. The aim, no doubt, was for comic relief in what is essentially a serious book. The effect, however, is to make "The Children" read at times like a screen treatment for a Walt Disney production of "The Adoption Game," starring Fred MacMurray as the author.

But so what. More than anything else, "The Children" demonstrates anew that, with conviction, moral outrage can still...