The classic adoption book The Mulberry Bird, by Anne Braff Brodzinsky, seems to be one of those books that people either love or hate. I suspect that it all depends on the timing, which in turn depends on your child. Most people say their child loved it and seemed to find it reassuring. A couple of parents are sure it caused more trouble than it averted.
I shared this ambivalence. I checked this book out of the library a couple of years ago and returned it without sharing it with my kids. This time, I put it on the shelf with their other library books, but didn’t actually pull it out and suggest reading it myself. Eventually the five-year-old brought it to me.
The Mulberry Bird addresses why a mother might not be able to care for her child, and why she might find it an act of love to make an adoption plan. Author Brodzinsky is an adoptive parent, and also a registered nurse who worked in psychiatric settings and did research and counseling regarding children’s awareness of and adjustment to adoption.
During her interviews with children, she found many had intense curiosity about why their birthparents hadn’t parented them. The Mulberry Bird is her attempt to answer that question.
Brodzinsky tries to make these issues less threatening by making the book’s characters birds instead of people. Some people find this works; others find it confusing.
Most of the story is told from the viewpoint of the Mulberry Bird, the “birthmother” in the story. Her mate has flown away. She lovingly lines a nest with feathers from her body, keeps her egg warm, and brings her hatchling only the best beetles and berries. When a storm comes, she shelters her baby with her body. But the storm breaks their nest and the bird falls. The mother cannot get him up to the tree. She clumsily builds a nest in the grass, but this leaves the baby vulnerable to predators when the mother leaves to get food.
Some quotes give you a feel for this part of the story:
“Mother Bird was afraid. She was younger than the other mother birds, and this was the first time she had had a baby to care for….in the evenings after the baby bird was asleep, she tried to think of ways to solve her problems….she worked all day, every day, and later into the nights…many days went by…..he was always hungry and crying. Mother Bird was very sad. She did not think that she was taking good care of her baby. She did not think that she could keep him safe and happy.”
Owl explains that he knows a solution, but it will mean saying goodbye to her baby. Owl knows a father and mother bird whose nest is ready for a baby. Owl will take the baby to them and they will become the baby’s mother and father.
Mother Bird at first refuses, but after an even worse storm she agrees to Owl’s plan.
“Mother Bird knew that Owl was right. She had tried to solve her problems, but she could not…Baby Bird was too young to remember all that had happened, but Mother Bird was not. She would always remember. ‘All grown-ups have hard problems,’ she thought. ‘Saying goodbye to my baby is one of mine.’”
As Owl carefully flies away with the baby, the mulberry bird takes a deep breath for courage, then circles higher over her tree than she ever has before, singing goodbye.
Obviously this is a highly poignant story—“oh, how sad!” my eight-year-old cried at one point– but I thought the author did a good job conveying the sadness of the Mother Bird while not being overly emotional or pitying.
The story tells of the baby’s welcome by two shorebirds. The baby and his parents have a happy home on the beach. His parents tell him about his birthmother and the storms and how hard she had tried to give him the things he needed.
Every so often the young bird wonders what his birthmother looks like, whether she ever misses him, and what it would be like to live in the mulberry tree.
“His parents helped him through the sad times. They knew it was hard for him to understand why he had been adopted. They knew that figuring it out was something he had to do.”
The story ends with the happy seasonal rhythms of the family’s life as the young bird grows.
I read the original 1986 version of The Mulberry Bird. The 1996 version has new full-color illustrations by Diana Stanley and is a bit more inclusive; the book is now suitable for single mothers because it emphasizes how the bird needs a “family” rather than “a mother and a father”. I wonder if a future edition will adapt the story to deal with open adoption?
The majority of mothers relinquishing for adoption in the U.S. are not first-time mothers, and nearly all domestic adoptions where the parent relinquishes voluntarily are open or semi-open adoptions. This makes the book perhaps more suitable for the children who were adopted internationally, in closed adoptions or the children of teen parents. Even then, homelessness and single parenthood are not always the reasons. However, the book can be a starting place for discussion.
Please see these related blogs:
Book Review: Is That Your SISTER? A True Story of Adoption
Adoption Books with Great Art Series: I Love You Like Crazy Cakes
Kids’ Books on Domestic Adoption and General Adoption Themes