Adoption Book Review: 'Welcome Home, Forever Child'

Today begins Book Review Week here at Exploring Adoption. Each day, I’ll review a recently-published adoption book, beginning with books for toddlers and working my way up to books for adults.

I’m giving away an autographed copy of today’s featured book, Welcome Home, Forever Child. To enter the drawing, simply post a comment telling why you would like to receive the book.

Welcome Home, Forever Child (Author-House, 2006)
Written and illustrated by Christine Mitchell

If you have a young daughter who was adopted as a toddler or pre-schooler, she will enjoy Welcome Home, Forever Child.

With charming illustrations of a family of cats who wear funky, human clothes, Christine Mitchell crafts a simple, delightful story about a family that adopts a child who is beyond babyhood. The text is written in rhyming iambic tetrameter (if you care about such literary conventions). Here’s a sample from a couple of pages:

We didn’t watch you learn to crawl,
or give you your first bouncy ball.
We didn’t share your first big grin,
or see your baby teeth come in.

Although we’ve missed some things, it’s true,
we have a lifetime now with you.
So much to learn, so much to do;
we will share many firsts with you…

Christine’s inspiration for writing the book came after she and her husband adopted their younger daughter from foster care when she was 4. “I was disappointed by the scarcity of picture books depicting adoptive families like ours,” says Christine.

“While there are many wonderful adoption story books available, the vast majority reflect infant adoptions,” she says. “Most are not appropriate for the older child who was removed from birth parents due to abuse and/or neglect and who lived in a series of foster homes, or for the child who was abandoned and spent years an orphanage.”

Throughout this book, the parents promise to love and nurture their child, and together, they look forward to the memories they will make together.

Welcome Home, Forever Child helps parents provide the reassurance that older children desperately need after joining their adoptive family. The book would make a wonderful gift for a newly-adopted child between the ages of 2-5.

Don’t forget to post a comment to be entered in the drawing to win this book. The winner will be announced May 1, 2007.

This book is available for purchase from Laura’s Exploring Adoption bookstore.

For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com.

Comments

[Becky B]

I would love this book for our pastor and his wife that just got back from China with a little girl who is almost three - thanks for doing things like this for the adoption community - this is a blessing!!

[Christine Lachaine, MEd, CCC, CPAC/ARC]

I specialize within the area of pre/post-adoption and foster care trauma, and would love to add this book to my collection for families I assist. Also I loan books out to clients....that can benefit from further written knowledge that may not be entirely covered within an hour. Hence, I would love to win a copy of this book.

[Darci]

I would love a copy of this book. My husband and I are awaiting the homecoming of our 18 month daughter. She is in foster care in another state, and we are only left to wait for the phone call to go get her.

The sample you posted is so touching, because it has been so hard to wait knowing that so many firsts have passed. I would love a book like this that could relate so well to her specific adoption.

[Esther]

I would love to be entered in the drawing for this book! We are currently adopting two children, ages 3-7 from the US domestic foster system. Cheers to you for doing this drawing & highlighting such great literature!

I recently learned I live in your hometown. Neat. I'll be on the lookout for ya ;o)

[Kathi S.]

I would also enjoy adding a copy of this book to our adoption library. My daughter is actually 11 now, and I did adopt her as an infant, but she realizes that we still missed sharing some of her "firsts." She still enjoys reading her 'children's books' about adoption, and I think this story would help her to continue to process that awareness that although families may miss moments, they still share lifetimes. We are not alone in that experience, and we are no less a family.

[Debra Gourley]

We hope to adopt a preschool child for our second child. This book would be great!

Debra G.

[Debra Gourley]

We hope to adopt a preschool child for our second child. This book would be great!

Debra G.

[Dawn K]

I'm so glad to see that there is a book that will help explain things to children. I have three children adopted from foster care and I sometimes feel that I am going to let them down or destroy our relationship by telling them more about the past. I try to be vague. I also got a copy of the Adoption Awareness in School assignments that this author wrote and it is excellent material for the schools to have. Projects that have to do with baby pictures and information regarding their birth is very difficult for our children.

[Elaine]

I would love to give this book to my son and his wife. They recently became parents of a 3 1/2 year old boy from Haiti. They waited for him since he was under one year old. I think this would be a perfect book for them to read to him.