Book Review: Allison

Caldecott Medalist Allen Say, who has written about his own family’s connections with both Japan and America, here tells a story of an Asian girl who is processing her growing awareness of her adoption. The plot is simple: Allison is happy to receive an ethnic dress like her doll wears, but grows quiet as she looks at her family in the mirror and notice that the only one who looks like her is her doll. Allison asks where her doll came from, and her father tells how they brought both Allison and her doll back from “a far country”. (Allison … Continue reading →

My Favorite Adoption Book Reviews of 2009

Last year, I wrote about my favorite books I reviewed in 2008. Here are favorites from the children’s adoption books I’ve reviewed this year. (These are books which I’ve reviewed here in the Adoption Blog in 2009. They may have been published in prior years.) In My Heart, by Molly Bang, is a wonderful book for any child. It’s a story of her mother telling her child that throughout the various activities of their separate days, he is always in her heart—and his parents, friends and teachers are in his heart too. The child pictured looks Indian or Latino and … Continue reading →

Combatting Stereotypes in Children, Part Two

In recent blogs we’ve talked about whether economic pressures and anti-immigrant sentiment will have an effect on our transracially adopted children. I wrote one blog on how adults can explore our own feelings about diversity. The blog Combatting Racism in Children, Part One talked about how children form attitudes and the importance of creating a diverse environment for young children, including diversity in pictures and in dramatic play props such as dress-up clothes and food. This blog will talk about some books and films that encourage an understanding of other cultures and of immigrants to America. There are many more … Continue reading →

Book Review: In My Heart, by Molly Bang

I finally have my wish, which I blogged about nearly three years ago, to see pictures of adoptive families in books that aren’t specifically about adoption. In My Heart, by author-illustrator Molly Bang, is a wonderful author and illustrator who has received three Caldecott Honors. In My Heart is a book that will be wonderfully reassuring to all children. It helps them deal with separation from a parent. It portrays the life of a working family, narrated by the mother, who tells how she misses her child when she is at her job (a veterinarian), but then reminds herself to … Continue reading →

Media Review: Follow that Bird!

I consider myself a book-lover, frugal, and responsible about other people’s property. Thus it may surprise you that, upon finding and reading a book in the church nursery, I ripped it up. By hand. Into tiny little pieces. I told the nursery director later that I didn’t even want someone to pull it out of the recycling and read it. Perhaps even more surprising is that it was a Sesame Street book. More surprising yet, I set out to review the movie the book was based on, and ending up thinking that it wasn’t that bad, actually enjoyable, with a … Continue reading →

Book Review: Love, Adoption, and Brownies with Sprinkles

Sometimes a book comes along that manages to write about a single experience, but one that is so ubiquitous that we think, “Why didn’t anyone write a book like this before?” Star of the Week: a Story of Love, Adoption, and Brownies with Sprinkles is based on the authors’ own daughter. She has some unique circumstances not shared by her classmates, but the setting is one almost all kids in early school-age can relate to. I n preschool, kindergarten and early elementary school, a frequent occurrence is for each student to be assigned a week to be the “Star”. They … Continue reading →

Book Review: Weaving a Family Untangling Race and Adoption

Barbara Katz Rothman is a sociologist. Much of her work has focused on the meaning of motherhood—ranging from studies of the modern midwifery movement, to the consumer pressure to buy for one’s offspring, to the Human Genome Project and the impact of genetics on identity and culture. These two interests– what it means to be a mother and what genes have to do with identity–merged when Rothman and her husband adopted an African-American infant. Rothman’s book Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption shares her insights, both professional and personal, on transracial adoption. Rothman’s title is inspired by the experience … Continue reading →

Book Review: a Koala for Katie

A Mother for Choco and A Koala for Katie are both books emphasizing that, while it is sad that first parents sometimes cannot care for children, the children can be happy with other parents. Parenting is a matter of how one cares for the child, not whether a parent looks like the child or is the child’s first parent. While A Mother for Choco talks about a child searching for a mother nad whether a mother has to look like her child, A Koala for Katie is about a girl who processes her own adoption story “adopting” a stuffed animal, … Continue reading →

Book Review: Nikolai, the Only Bear

Nikolai, the Only Bear is a story about a bear who lives in an orphanage (in Russia. Nikolai is the only bear in the orphanage. He is three years old. He tries to play with the other children, but they are afraid of him. His caregivers are constantly telling him to say hello, say thank you, play nice, sing the same lyrics as everyone else at music class. The problem is, Nikolai does say all those things, but the caregivers and the other children don’t speak bear. The softly colored illustrations show the orphans playing and being cared for in … Continue reading →

Book Review: The White Swan Express

As the sun rises over North America, four diverse households greet the day anticipating the same great event. At the same time, the moon rises over China, and four little ones go to sleep. They are dressed exactly alike, but Wu Li sleeps on her back with “her arms stretched wide like the branches of a tree”. Qian Ye yawns and curls into a ball. Li Shen snuggles on her side; Chun Mei Ni rolls over and smiles in her sleep. The girls have their own delicate features too, shown in the illustrations by Meilo So, which are simple yet … Continue reading →