Two general books about families include adoptive, multi-racial and special-needs families that will be of interest to adoptive families. The photos in both will appeal to young children and the text will spark discussion for older children and their parents.
Photographer Ann Morris ‘ trademark style is books with one theme, such as “Work”, “Hats”, “Carrying Babies”, and show pictures of people all around the world doing these things. The text is kept simple and the photos speak for themselves, although an index in the back provides a caption for each picture explaining what country it was taken in and what is going on.
Her book Families follows this format. It has a double-page spread which reads “Some children live with a grandparent or a foster family. Others are adopted by parents who choose them specially. The pictures show an African-American grandmother with two grandsons, a mother with her son adopted from Korea, a mom with a daughter who appears to be East Indian, and a family with several youngsters of various ethnicities, for which the caption reads “These toddlers are much loved by their foster parents.”
The flyleaf picture is a photo of a baby, about ten months old, who could be either Asian or Caucasian, being kissed by a Caucasian couple. The index caption reads “Welcoming the new baby with hugs and kisses”. I’m not sure if it’s an adoption photo or not, but it well could be. And it was taken not in the U.S., but in the U.K.
Photographer Susan Kuklin’s book is also titled Families. It includes kids talking about what it’s like to be an only child or to have several siblings, to live with a single parent or to split time between divorced parents’ homes, to have families members of different races or just one, to celebrate different ethnicities and religions, and much more.
Like other books Kuklin has written and/or photographed, the close-up photos vibrate with life. In this book Kuklin lets the children themselves speak about their families, pose their families for photos, and select a photo from the family album for the book that tells a bit of family history or tradition.
The children, ranging from ages four to fourteen, were found through diverse elementary schools in New York City. One girl was adopted from China by a single mother. One girl was adopted by two men. One boy was adopted from Sierra Leone as a boy of about eight, by a family with a mom from Ecuador, a German/English-American dad, and three siblings.
The non-adopted families also show diversity. One boy talks about having a brother with Down Syndrome. There is a Korean-American family, several Latino families, families of African-American and Native American heritage, and families with parents of different races or from different countries. An observant Muslim family and an Orthodox Jewish family are profiled.
Please see these related blogs:
Resources for Talking About Skin Color
Talking About Diversity in School and at Home
Considerations in Adopting When You Already Have Children: Shared or Different Heritages