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My friend Kay, who is a blogger for ADDitude magazine and also a frequent contributor to Adoptive Families, wrote a wonderful review of my small press’s most recent title, The Forever Friends Club, for Adoptive Families magazine. It’s out this month! Woo hoo!

Only problem is, they chopped it into teeny tiny pieces. This month’s book review section is about 1/4 what it usually is.

Bummer!

But here’s the FULL REVIEW, for your reading pleasure:

Every once in awhile, when I take my daughter Natalie to the park, I experience a secret delight.  As I take an accounting of the kids who are there, I realize–there are more kids who are adopted than otherwise!  How cool!  Natalie (Russia) and her best friend Harry (US Foster/Adopt) are there with me.   Kim (Korea) is shooting hoops with a group of boys.  And then, Hannah and Sergei (both Russia), appear out of the trees.  Let’s see, that’s one, two, three… out of….one, two…yes!  I love it!

A similar scenario is at the heart of a new very early chapter book, The Forever Friends Club, which features themes of friendship, problem solving, diversity, and adoption. In this story, Sam has no one to play with–until three families with kids move into his neighborhood.  Madison, the creative one, is adopted from Wisconsin. Nick, who never stops moving, is from Russia. (Natalie, excitedly: “He’s from Russia, like me?  And he rocks, like me?”) And Isabel, who remembers being adopted at age four from Guatemala, is the take charge type. That leaves Sam–he’s the only one who isn’t adopted, and he feels left out.  Find out how, in a clever twist of the “forever families” concept, the kids solve their problem and form “The Forever Friends Club”.

The book is graced with the lyrical writing style that is the hallmark of the best books at this reading level; the bridge between beginning readers and chapter books. Co-author Sue Gainor is the national chairperson of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA).

Wonderful, expertly developed free extras—guidelines for forming a Forever Friends Club, puzzles, stickers and more fun stuff for kids; information and learning tools for parents, teachers, and librarians—is provided on the publisher’s website, drtpress.com.

Read The Forever Friends Club with your child, adopted or otherwise.  Share in the delight!

Kay Marner, freelance writer/frequent contributor to Adoptive Families magazine/ founding member Iowa Chapter, Gift of Adoption Fund

Some day I will get this office. Some day I will be able to make a living with my small press. Some day I will be just busy enough so that my mind will stay stimulated, but not too busy so that I have to work more hours a week than I want. Some day I will be able to pick my kids up after school again, and volunteer in their classrooms. Some day I will be able to take a day off and hang out with my friends – just because. Some day I will be able to take the day off and hang out with my husband – just because. 

Some day I will go back to being my own boss 100% because I am a good boss, I treat myself as a professional, and I give praise when I achieve success and I’m bummed out when I have a failure.  I will pay myself well, and when my company makes more money I will give myself more money. But when it doesn’t do well I will understand and cut back. I will never give myself a crappy musak Christmas CD for X-mas and that’s it. At my company holiday party I’ll include alcohol (if I want it) and if I am so lucky to have an employee or two I will pay for everything. Some day I will never have to go to a meeting or go to work because time spent in the chair is what really matters, as opposed to time spent productively.

Some day I will have a cute little office in a cute little building in my downtown, with window boxes at the window, a tin roof above my window, and my company’s name stenciled on the glass. Inside I’ll have a couch and a desk and another desk for my assistant, and I’ll have made the curtains at the window and the throw pillows on the couch. I’ll have a card catalog as a cabinet or maybe a coffee table, because I’ve always wanted a card catalog, and I will have peace and quiet for many hours of the day. I will not be interrupted 5 times an hour by a child who cannot keep himself entertained or who needs something to eat or just hit his brother or who said a bad word. I will not have to get up at 5:30 to have 10 minutes to myself. I will have an office.

Five years ago my husband and I decided to adopt a child from Russia. We know lots of adopted kids; my five-year-old son Jacob’s best friend is adopted as is his little sister. Our playgroup contains any number of adopted or foster children and we have several grown-up friends who are adoptees. Even our regular babysitter is adopted. For Jacob, then four, this was just another way to add to our family. The thought of a ready-made little brother or sister was helping all of us, perhaps especially Jacob, heal from the late-term miscarriage we’d suffered that winter. He was excited.

What Jacob didn’t completely understand was why Mommy and Daddy had to go away for so long to get a sibling. It usually takes two trips to Russia to adopt, each trip a week, if not longer, and children Jacob’s age don’t usually accompany their parents. He was happy to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a couple of weeks (he’s spent so much time at my mom’s B&B, the Rosemary House, that he now announces to the guests that he works there) but he’d never been apart from us that long before. I wanted to explain to him what it would be like for his father and me to travel to meet our new son, so I turned to our nightly ritual of story time to help show him what our journey would be like.

Mishka: An Adoption Tale, is a book I wrote specifically for adopted children, siblings of adopted children, and any child curious about the adoption process. Mishka tells the story of Mo, a teddy bear who lives on the shelf of an airport bookshop. Mo sees families coming in and out of the bookshop and longs for one of his own. Then one day, a man and a woman come into the store and they buy him! But instead of taking him home, they take him on an airplane and they fly for many hours. Once they land, they take Mo to a strange building and give him as a gift to a little boy, Yuri. They play with Mo and Yuri, but then they leave. Will they ever come back? Will they be a family? Through Mo’s eyes, children can feel some of what adopted children feel and they can see the process of Russian adoption as well. It’s a reassuring tale of a teddy bear (in Russian, a mishka) that finds a family of his own.

Seeds of Love, written by Mary E. Petertyl and illustrated by Jill Chambers, is the story of a little girl whose parents are traveling to an unnamed country, probably China, to adopt a new baby. The little girl in the story is confused about why her parents must go so far away to get a baby, and she’s anxious about staying with her grandmother. After all, her grandmother doesn’t know to cut the crusts off her toast and to turn her nightlight when she goes to bed. Her mother assures her that her grandma will know what to do, and presents the little girl with a pot of dirt in which she puts a couple of seeds. She instructs her daughter to water the pot every day they are apart. When the seeds start to sprout, that’s when the girl will know her parents are coming home. As a picture book, neither the artwork nor the text ofSeeds of Love are very impressive, but I would still suggest it as an important companion for any child whose parents are adopting a sibling internationally. The messages in this book, that adopting overseas is a recognized way of adding to your family and, when it does happen, that Mommy and Daddy will come back to you, are crucial for the child left behind to hear. This book is currently out of print, but if you find a copy it’s worth keeping.

Over the Moon, written and illustrated by Karen Katz (one of my favorites) is the story of a couple anxiously awaiting the arrival of their new baby. Everyone gets in on the anticipation: Grandma, the fruit seller, and the little girl from next-door all ask when the baby is coming. “Soon,” the parents answer, and then they get the call! The baby has been born in a far-away land, full of flowers and palm trees and birds, reachable “over the moon and through the night.” Once they get the baby they are nervous as they’ve never cared for an infant, but before they know it they’ve spent their first day as a family and are looking forward to the next. Illustrated in Katz’s brilliant and funky style, I highly recommend Over the Moon for families formed by international adoption, even those children who, like my younger son, were not adopted from a tropical location. She captures that anticipatory, excited feeling of waiting for “the call,” perfectly.

Finally, I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, written by Rose Lewis and illustrated by Jane Dyer, tells the story of a single woman adopting a little girl from China. Both the narrative and the pictures are simple, but powerful, and even now, after reading it fifty times, I still tear up when the mother first meets her new daughter. Like Over the Moon, there is no sibling in this book, but the first time I read it to my son the value in reading him this story became clear: it carefully and completely illustrates the process of falling in love with the new child. This is something my son missed by remaining at home, but through reading this book he can get a taste of what it was like for us.