Search Results for: blog book review i wish for you a beautiful life

Book Review: Is That Your SISTER? A True Story of Adoption

So, how do the kids really feel? Is That Your Sister? tells you. It is narrated by six-year-old Catherine, who co-wrote the book with her mother, Sherry. At the playground and the store, Catherine is often asked, “Is that your sister? Is that your mother?” Catherine, her mother and her sister all look quite different from each other because Catherine and her sister are adopted. (In the black-and-white pencil illustrations by Sheila Kelly Welch, Catherine appears to be biracial, fairly light-skinned with textured hair and some African-appearing features, and Carla is African-American with dark skin and a short Afro.) Catherine … Continue reading →

Book Review–Kimchi and Calamari

My last blogs have featured adoption books for young children. I’m pleased to be able to talk about one aimed at the middle-school crowd. This age group is often hard to find books for. Parents want books that introduce adoption themes so that their kids can feel that there are other kids like themselves and also to spark discussion between parent and child. But most books are either children’s picture books, or teen novels dealing with heavy themes like child abandonment and searching, such as Throwaway Daughter. Kimchi and Calamari also touches on these themes, but in a light-hearted way. … Continue reading →

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver

I’ve seen this book reviewed in scads of places and heard people talking about it, so I wanted to read it for myself and see if it measured up (in my estimation) to all the press it’s been getting. The book takes place in the 1960s. Nathan Price is a preacher who feels called to go to the Belgian Congo to teach Christianity to the natives. He takes along his wife, Orleanna, and their four daughters: Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May. They can only take the barest of necessities, but they hardly know what those necessities might be, having … Continue reading →

What Will They Think I’m Doing to One of Their Kids?

Yesterday I wrote about whether when people see me with my kids, they think of my interactions with them as a reflection on adoption. Sometimes I would like to be a bit less conspicuous. There is another situation which brings on an even more intense feeling of being conspicuous. That is when I am around people from my daughters’ country. There are times when I have sat quite demurely patting my child’s back while she screams and kicks the sidewalk at our city’s central plaza. It took her a full half hour to realize she wasn’t going to get what … Continue reading →

Book Review: Throwaway Daughter

I read this book with a mixture of fascination and horror. The author of Throwaway Daughter, Ting-Xing Le, lived through the Cultural Revolution in China and worked as a translator before defecting to the West. (Her life story is told in her memoir A Leaf in the Bitter Wind.) Throwaway Daughter, however, is a novel about a Chinese girl adopted to Canada who goes back to look for her Chinese family. The American Library Association listed it on its Best Books for Young Adults, but I would warn parents against giving this volume to children. Parents should read it first … Continue reading →

Imaginary Birthmother’s Letter, Part Three

This is the continuation of a letter I imagined a birthmother might write. The last two blogs contain the first two parts. Again, this is my imagination and is not based on any birthmother that I know. The letter continues: When my friends came home they took me to the hospital. You were born in a tiny room. A doctor and nurse were there when you were born. The doctor made sure you were breathing all right, and then he took you to the nursery, where you stayed in the incubator because you were so tiny. The nurse could tell … Continue reading →

Imaginary Birthmother’s Letter, Part Two

This is the continuation of a letter I imagined a birthmother might write. The last blog contains the first part. Again, this is my imagination and is not based on any birthmother that I know. The letter continues: By this time something else had happened. I began to feel you inside me. I was very scared, but also excited. It is exciting to have a human being growing inside of you. Sometimes you kicked me if you heard a loud noise. Other times it seemed like you calmed down if I spoke softly. I thought about wanting to be a … Continue reading →

Book Review: I Wish for You a Beautiful Life

The voices of birthmothers, especially those from other countries, are some of the least heard from regarding adoption. A rare exception is I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean birthmothers of Ae Ran Won. This is not a children’s book, as the editors carefully point out several times. It is intended primarily for adoptive parents, so that they will have some idea of the circumstances faced by birthparents and the thoughts and emotions they have regarding their babies and placing their babies for adoption. The idea is that adoptive parents can then be in a better … Continue reading →

The Wishing Jar — Penelope J. Stokes

It was just a white ceramic jar with a phoenix painted on the side, but the old peddler woman told Gracie Quinn that it was a magic jar, a wishing jar. All she had to do was lift the lid and make a wish, and it would come true. Gracie didn’t believe the fable, but bought the jar anyway. There was something about that beautiful bird that called to her. As Gracie grew older, she passed that jar down to her daughter, who in turn passed it on. Along with the jar came the legend of the phoenix, a mighty … Continue reading →