There is a dearth of adoption stories, either fiction or non-fiction, for kids in between the picture book stage and the young-adult novel stage. So it’s doubly disappointing that the latest one I read perpetuates old stereotypes.
Trophy Kid, or How I Was Adopted by the Rich and Famous is by Steve Atinsky. We hear a lot nowadays about celebrities adopting. Atinsky did have a creative idea to look at what a 13-year-old son of movie stars (one of whom is a political candidate) thinks of his adoption ten years later.
Jozef Francis (Joe) was orphaned by the fighting in Croatia at the age of three. His dramatic rescue, followed by the little boy, accompanied by soldiers, searching through buildings until he finds his own apartment—empty.
Neighbors are able to supply the boy’s last name, and the authorities confirm that his mother and older sister were killed in the school bombing, which Jozef survived needing only a few stitches. The family had been notified just a few days earlier that Jozef’s father, an engineer building bridges for the military, was killed in action.
The rescue and search captured the imagination of various celebrities.
In Joe’s own words at age thirteen:
“Greta and Robert won me in a bidding war with eight other high-profile couples and a few bachelor billionaires. I still hold the record for the most expensive adoption: $3.2 million.”
Joe’s life is literally scripted to enhance his parents’ images as stars, human rights crusaders, and political candidates. He is told what to say at various photo opportunities. He calls his parents by their first names, except in front of cameras when he has been instructed to call them Mom and Dad. His younger sister, their parents’ birth child, is a child actress like her mother. Through much of the story, we are shown outrageous interchanges, past and present, which show the adoptive parents’ shallowness, insensitivity and concern with appearances.
The story of Trophy Kid begins when Joe is told by his parents that he is going to write a book “all by himself” to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his adoption and to tell his “moving journey”. Of course, they don’t intend to actually let Joe write it himself—his father’s agent has arranged for a ghostwriter.
The ghostwriter, Tom, has a good rapport with Joe and decides to let Joe tell the story rather than provide the spin desired by Joe’s parents. Tom tells Joe that his own father was killed in the Vietnam War when Tom was five. Eventually Joe entrusts Tom with a secret: he found a letter in his father’s files dated two years ago, which says that his birth father’s status is not “killed” but “mission in action”. Joe is furious that his parents didn’t tell him, but Tom has persuaded them to plan a family trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia.
On the trip, Joe is able to stand up to his father and say that he doesn’t want any more of his father’s media people trailing him. His father eventually gets the message, and Joe’s whole family grows closer on the trip. Joe’s learns that his adoptive parents have in fact been trying to get information about his birthfather for months, but records on war casualties have only recently been unsealed. Eventually it is learned that Joe’s birth father is indeed dead, but Joe is touched to learn that his adoptive parents have tried, and do seem to want what is best for him.
The novel is an easy read, a couple of hours perhaps. One advantage the book might have is making almost any adoptive parents look good by comparison, but some adopted kids may be led to believe that parents pay for their children and that their birthparents may still be alive or may even be celebrities themselves. Adoptive parents should judge their children’s readiness for this plot. I think my daughters will appreciate that it’s just fantasy, that not all celebrities are necessarily shallow, and that children are not bought in bidding wars.
I am mostly concerned with the impression given to other children (and adults, who unfortunately seem to have more stereotypes about adoption than kids do) that adoption is buying children and that adopted children often don’t really feel part of the family. Adoptive families deserve better portrayals than this.
Please see these related blogs:
Celebrity Moms Lending a Hand to Children of the World
Angelina Jolie’s Latest Adoption: Fair or Fast?
Found: A Book Review
Book Review: Kimchi and Calamari
Book Review: The Ocean Within/Tides