Search Results for: blog book review adoption nation

Little Critter Books

I have always stressed the importance of reading in my house. I would encourage it at every opportunity. Story time was a big deal. Every day we would take time out to do this. It was loved by all in my house. In the evening there was also story time. It was a daily ritual and because of that, I believe, I had good readers around me. Not only did my house have good readers, but imaginations ran wild here. It was a good thing. There were stories created by the people among me that I have saved and treasured … Continue reading →

Book Review: All About Adoption:How Families Are Made and How Kids Feel About It

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All About Adoption: How Families Are Made and How Kids Feel About It is a book from Magination Press, which specializes in titles helping children understand tough situations or deal with feelings. (Magination Press is also the publisher of Maybe Days, a Book about Foster Care.) All About Adoption authors Marc Nemiroff and Jane Annunziata are both clinical psychologists specializing in families and children. All About Adoption starts out by saying “there are lots of different ways to have a baby. ..some parents have one baby..and some parents have two or three babies all at once. “Babies grow inside a … Continue reading →

Books for Kids About Foster Care

There are many good children’s books about adoption, but still a dearth of books about foster care. It is a painful subject to write about, but it is also hard when a foster child thinks he or she is the only one going through it, and also when other children don’t understand. The following books can be used by foster parents, social workers and therapists to help children understand some of the reasons they might be in foster care, the roles of the adults including biological family, foster parents, social worker, therapist and judge; and who makes the decisions about … Continue reading →

More Reassuring Books for Adopted Children

Some time ago I published a blog on Reassuring Your Adopted Child. This blog shares some more books with reassuring messages for adopted children—and for all children. Max Lucado, author of spiritual books for both adults and children, has two books which I believe will be helpful. The first book is Just in Case You Ever Wonder. The illustrations by Toni Goffe begin with a young infant, but the text could be for either birth or adoption: “The same hands that made the stars made you.” “God made you like no one else.” “And since you were so special , … Continue reading →

China Adoption Book Review Series: Kids Like Me in China

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What does a nine-year-old think and feel about her adoption? What thoughts and feelings does she have on revisiting the orphanage where she lived during the first year of her life and meeting her caregivers? My recent China Adoption Book Review Series (The Lost Daughters of China, China Ghosts, and Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son Parts One, Two, and Three, has covered writings by adoptive parents and from researchers, journalists and academics into abandonment, orphanage care, and domestic and international adoption in China. With Kids Like Me in China, we get to hear from an adoptee. Ying Ying Fry … Continue reading →

China Adoption Book Report Series: Wanting a Daughter…Part Three

My last two blogs discussed Kay Ann Johnson’s research on abandonment and orphanage care in China and whether Chinese parents desire to adopt girls. This blog continues to explore domestic adoption within China. Johnson and her colleagues have interviewed 1200 Chinese adoptive families. Many of these interviews were in person, locating adoptive families by word of mouth. Johnson says that the procedural paperwork, discrimination, and expense (relative to income) faced by parents adopting internationally is far less than those faced by the Chinese families who adopted children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Chinese authorities wanted to forestall the … Continue reading →

China Adoption Book Review: Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son

Kay Ann Johnson is a professor of Asian Studies and Politics at Hampshire College. Yet when she adopted her daughter from a Chinese orphanage in 1991, she felt not only the anxiety of participating in what was then a new adoption program, but also a great desire to learn more about her daughter’s story, or at least the story of many girls like her. Why are children, especially girls, abandoned in China? What consequences—emotional and practical—do the birthparents face? Do most foundlings enter the orphanage system? Johnson’s 2004 book, Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption and Orphanage Care … Continue reading →

China Adoption Book Review: The Lost Daughters of China

Karin Evans is a journalist. Her book, Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past alternates between her story of adopting a one-year-old Chinese girl and her research into the circumstances leading to the abandonment of so many girls from China. (I should point out, as I’ve written before, that abandonment is not always—nor even usually in other countries—leaving a child to its fate. In countries where there are no adoption agencies helping birthparents nor laws allowing the relinquishment of babies, leaving a child in a place where she will easily … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →