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 look inside her heart and rejoice at her child.
The parents in this book are light-skinned, with red and blonde hair. The child (who could be either a girl or a boy) has dark brown skin with straight black hair—possibly Latino, Native American or East Indian. The parents are shown sharing child care and household duties. The father is dressed as a blue-collar laborer, a refreshing change from most children’s books, which—aside from police and firefighters—glorify only the “professional” jobs. The father gets the child ready for school and off on the school bus. After school a grandmother (or older nanny) cares for the child at home until the mother gets home from work.
Bang is known for drawings which are simple and clear, yet full of imagery and very expressive. We see the mother’s workday, riding the subway, entering her office, helping various animals, grabbing a sandwich on the run; and inside her heart we see the boy and the various things he does throughout the day: playing dress-up, painting, snack time, building with blocks, napping on a mat at pre-school, watching a cat. The mother says “When you’re….[doing all these things], you’re in my heart.”
She also says when she it’s cold and dark, or hot and dreary, he’s in her heart. Bang’s colors evoke these feelings beautifully.
My daughters loved the entire book. The second time through, they were fascinated by how the first initial letter on a page is often part of the picture—an alphabet block, two opened newspapers on a subway forming a “W”, leaves forming a letter, the mother’s arms and heart forming a “Y”.
I heartily recommend this book for all children and families.
For other books I’ve written about that are reassuring to an adopted child even though they are not specifically about adoption, see the following blog:
Please also see this related blog: