Hellobee

I’ve been wanting to write this post for over a year, and sadly it has taken me awhile to get our adoption books together, but I’m so excited to share with you our favorite children’s books related to adoption.

Everyone’s adoption story is different, so you can see which ones fit your family better. And some of these are great books to read to your kids even if you didn’t adopt them, as sweet stories and as educational tools so they begin to understand the different ways families are made.

1. Tell Me Again about the Night I was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis

This book is told from the perspective of an adoptee asking her adoptive parents about the night she was born. It’s neat because it reminds us how much children want to know how they came into the world and how happy they make us as parents. I love the line, “Tell me again about the first time you help me in your arms and you called me your baby sweet. Tell me again how you cried happy tears.” What parent doesn’t have this as a part of the story of seeing their child for the first time? Of course as adoptive families, these stories of meeting our children are different, but such an important part of their story, so it’s fun to read a book asking her parents to hear this important part of her life again.

2. I Wished for You by Marianne Richmond

Marianne Richmond writes a lot of books about the love parents have for the children and this book is no exception. It starts off with Barley Bear wanting to hear again how he is his mama’s wish come true. He asks about his birthmother too and reminds me that, “Of all the children in the whole wide world God picked you for me.” Mama bear goes on to tell him how much she wished, prayed, and imagined him for such a long time while she waited. She shares with him the excitement she had when she found out about him, and she tells him the importance of love in a family when he asks about why they look different from each other, which is a common thread in adoption books. This is certainly a tear jerker book for parents and a great book to let your children know how much you wished for and anticipated them joining your life.

3. A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza

Choco is a lonely bird looking for a mother who looks like him. He doesn’t find one, but find a mother bear who is just the mother he needs! This story makes adoption a little easier to explain since it uses animals and is a great illustration of why families don’t have to look alike to be filled with love.

4. ABC, Adoption & Me by Gayle H Smith and Casey Anne Swift

This is a really sweet ABC book that uses great adoption terms for each letter. F is for family, L is for love and T is for trust and truth. I love the fact that this book gives kids permission to ask questions and to love both their adoptive and birth families. It was written by an adoptive mom and her daughter, which makes it extra sweet.

5. Over the Moon by Karen Katz

In our house we love Karen Katz books! I love their beautiful illustrations and memorable lines. And until I read the back page of the book I didn’t realize that the author is telling her own story of adopting from Central America! This book highlights international adoption as the adoptive parents anxiously wait to hear they can travel to meet their child. I love the colorful illustrations that are like her other books. The excitement of the parents in this book is really palpable and would be beautiful to read to a child that was adopted internationally.

6. The Best for you by Kelsey Stewart

This book was written by a birthmother and I love it for that. It’s the only book I’ve found on adoption for children that focuses on the birthmother’s perspective. I love reading this to our kids to let them know how much they are loved and adored by their birthmothers, and how difficult of a decision it was for them to choose adoption for their children. It’s more suited for children adopted domestically since the birthmother in the book chooses specific adoptive parents for her child and they get to leave the hospital with the baby.

7. Rosie’s Family- An Adoptive Story by Lori Rosove

This book was recommended to us by the head of the agency that we worked with for Little Piñata’s adoption. Not only is she an adoption specialist, but she is an adoptee herself, so we knew it would be a good story. Rosie is a dog that is adopted into a family of dogs that look different from her. One reason it was recommended to us is that it does a good job of making adoption more concrete by explaining birth families vs. babies coming to their parents out of nowhere like other adoption books do. I also love how it addresses that all families are real families and getting rid of any misconceptions about either adoptive or birth parents not being “real.”

Sweet Rose even asks, “Do I really belong in my family?” and the book does a good job answering that question. There are also 2 pages in the back with suggestions for talking about the difficult parts of adoption with your kids, which is an extra plus.

8. All About Adoption: How Families are Made and How Kids Feel about It by Marc Nemiroff and Jane Annunziata

This book was written by a psychologist and psychiatrist and is geared toward older kids (elementary school age vs preschool age), as it explains all the different ways that adoption can happen and goes into explaining what a home study is and the importance of making everything legal, etc. They do a great job of including families of all different races in the book and explaining that every form of adoption is a valid way to build a family. It’s great for older kids because it also discusses all the feelings that both the children and parents may go through along the adoption process and validates all of those feelings. I love that it includes illustrations of different kinds of families experiencing different kinds of struggles and addresses them all as normal. It reminds children that although families may all be different, they are all the same in that they are built on love.

9. God Found us You by Lisa Tawn Bergren

This was the first adoption related children’s book we received and was the first book we ever read to Little Piñata the day we brought him home from the hospital. It was read with several family members around and I can assure you that there was not a dry eye there. Like several other books mentioned already, it’s the story of a child asking his mother about the day he came home. In this case it’s a baby and mother fox. And because he asks about the day he came home it’s really well suited for children adopted both internationally, domestically, and through foster care. I just love when the mama fox says, “It made it hard to see other mamas with their children” and baby fox responds by asking her if she was lonely for him. I can remember those feelings so distinctly and felt exactly like that with both of our kids. I was lonely for them! It shows her waiting every day by the water for him, which is so true of so many of us as adoptive parents, especially those who wait months or years for their specific children in international adoption! I think this book holds a special place in my heart as our first book, but it is so sweet and I love the final words that her baby fox made her “the happiest mama in the world.”

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Do you have any adoption books that I haven’t included here? I would love to hear about them!