Prepare for a literary information dump. During my recent illness I wasn’t able to write clearly, but I did a lot of reading to distract myself—so you’ll be seeing a lot of book reviews in the next week or two.
The Gift from Afar is an adoption fairy tale written by a Korean-American mother. She writes in the introduction that all children love the story of how they came to be, but notes that often adopted children don’t have stories of their birth. She uses the old folk theme of storks delivering babies to weave a story of a special stork who turned an injury into an asset, making him able to deliver babies far distances and become the first stork to deliver internationally adopted babies.
Focusing on the stork’s story, from his time at Stork School and his longing to make his first delivery, makes an engaging story that has adoption as a natural part of the storyline rather than a didactic focus. The story conveys how special all babies are, and how the storks love to meet each different baby and care for him or her tenderly on their journey. It shows the excitement of the parents, both in Korea and America, and says that when parents unbundle their new baby, a bit of magic is sprinkled into the air for the new family. It also tells children that if they are wondering whether they were brought by Han the “airplane stork” they should have someone push their belly button two or three times to see if they giggle, because Han puts a secret giggle in each baby’s belly button.
The book conveys a couple of geographical facts about Korea, but ends by mentioning that “Han now travels all over the world. He has delivered babies from China, Viet Nam, and Russia, and next month he will travel to Guatemala, Paraguay and Romania. If you listen very, very carefully, you might hear news of Han rustling in the wind.”
Some parents may not like the idea of perpetuating “untruths” such as the stork myth. I think most children, even young ones, know this is a fairy tale—mine certainly did. It is rare to find a fairy tale that relates so directly to our children’s own story, especially one that conveys care and purpose in getting children to parents rather than the “found on doorstep” scenario in any other fairy tale I can think of which is sometimes presented as having an “adoption theme”.
The back of the book has a short essay by an adoptive mother on how her children have responded to the book.
I wouldn’t call this book a must-have, but it’s fun. It is published by and available from the KoreAm Institute, Inc. at www.koream.com.
Please see these related blogs:
Love You Forever: Reassuring Your Adopted Child
Kids’ Books Starring Internationally Adopted Kids
Kids’ Books on Domestic Adoption and General Adoption Themes