The Red Thread: An Adoption Fairy Tale is author-illustrator Grace Lin’s tale of a king and queen who feel a strange pain in their hearts. I consider it a strong contender for my Adoption Books with Great Art series. Lin, an American of Chinese descent, wrote the book after experiencing “many warm and wonderful interactions with families with children from China”.
Based on an ancient Chinese belief that an invisible, unbreakable red thread connects those who are destined to be together, Lin creates a wise peddler who gives a king and queen with a “pain in their hearts” a pair of magic spectacles so that they can see and follow the red thread which tugs at them. They go through many hardships as they travel a long, long way, but each step lessens the pain in their hearts. Finally they reach a land where they do not speak the language, and where the people stare at them because they have “faces as pale as the moon”. The red thread ends at a bundle which turns out to be a baby. A bespectacled elder sees the red threads and, smiling, tells the royal couple that this baby is theirs. The smiling villagers wave as the royal couple and their baby depart, and back home the entire village turns out to welcome their new princess. The king and queen search for the wise peddler to reward him, but he has left for the next kingdom, for he and heard that the king and queen there have a pain in their hearts.
“They never found out how the red thread had connected them to their daughter,” the story muses near the end, “but they knew why. And that was all that mattered.”
The last picture shows a couple with an Asian daughter reading a copy of the book together.
A sentiment similar to the belief in the red thread was expressed by Rose Lewis in her book I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, which tells of Lewis’ own experience in bringing her daughter home from China. Lewis remembers thinking, “How did someone make this perfect match half a world away? Did the Chinese people have a special window to my soul?”
Lewis has a new book about her daughter, featuring the beautiful soft watercolors by Jane Dyer which were so expressive in the earlier book. Every Year on Your Birthday shares Lewis’ and her daughter’s experiences on the girl’s first through fifth birthdays. The experiences include celebrations with family and friends, the toddler’s naturalization as an American citizen, and a picnic to watch a dragon boat parade on a Chinese holiday. An important point, although not belabored much, is the poignant reminder of and gratitude to the unknown Chinese birthmother with which Lewis’ first book ended.
Girls adopted from China, and internationally adopted children from other cultures as well, will enjoy this book which reflects not only their adoption story, but a story that relates to their ongoing life as American children adopted from other countries. Other children will enjoy the beautiful pictures and the simple but poetic text, and will enjoy learning more about the lives of the many adopted children and Asian children who may be, or likely will be, their peers at some point in their lives.
Please see this related blog:
Children’s Books on Adoption from China