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Summary
Summary
This story of a woman who travels to China to adopt a baby girl, based on the author's own experiences, is a celebration of the love and joy a baby brings into the home. Full color.
Author Notes
Rose Lewis has a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University. An accomplished still photographer and an award-winning producer for WCVB-TV in Boston, she lives with her daughter in Massachusetts.
Jane Dyer is the illustrator of her own anthology, Animal Crackers ; Time For Bed , by Mem Fox; Child of Faerie, Child of Earth , by Jane Yolen; Here Is My Heart: Love Poems , selected by William Jay Smith; and Blue Moon Soup: A Family Cookbook , with reciped by Gary Goss. Jane Dyer lives in Massachusetts.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lewis's sweetly sentimental picture-book debut plays out like a love letter to her adopted Chinese daughter. As she recalls the events leading up to their first meeting ("I had been waiting for you my whole life")Äthe letters to foreign officials, the baby picture she received, the flight to China with other excited soon-to-be parentsÄand describes their joyous homecoming, she taps into a well of genuine emotion, not surprisingly, since her account is based on her own experience. Like Jamie Lee Curtis's Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born, the book offers abundant reassurances of love to adopted children, even if at times it seems more concerned with the feelings of the adult narrator than with those of the child ("How did someone make this perfect match a world away? Did the Chinese people have a special window to my soul?"). Dyer's (When Mama Comes Home Tonight) watercolors are almost meltingly tender. Whether depicting an airplane soaring against a star-spangled night sky, a round-cheeked child enthralled with a room full of toys or an embrace shared by the newly bonded mother and child, the clear, bright colors and clean lines of her portraits are immensely appealing. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
A single woman travels to China to adopt a little girl. Throughout, the text addresses the child (I brought you back to the hotel and sat you down on the bed) in a sort of love letter. Dyer's clean, realistic watercolors successfully convey the poignancy of the text. From HORN BOOK Fall 2001, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Ages 4^-8. The title sounds sweet, but this autobiographical story of a woman journalist's trip to China to adopt a baby girl seems less fictional sentiment than reportage. In a gentle manner just right for a picture-book audience, Lewis first explains China's current adoption and placement policies for baby girls. She then goes on to write about one special Chinese baby girl who had everything but a mother, and one American woman who had everything but a baby. "How did someone make this perfect match a world away?" the mother wonders as she looks at the child. The birth mother is not forgotten--at book's end, the adoptive mother cries for her, wanting her to know that her child is safe and happy. It's the joyful wonderment of a mother's seeing her new child, however, that leaves the greatest impact. With Dyer's soft watercolors underscoring the emotion, the book will be wonderful for lap sharing and a companion to Allen Say's Allison (1997). --Connie Fletcher
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-An engaging story about a single woman who goes to China to adopt a baby girl, written as though it were being told to the child. Lewis relays her own experiences, fast-forwarding through the paperwork process to focus on the interactions leading to emotional attachment. From first photographs and tears to home visitors and lullabies, one can't help but become fond of the new parent and child. Dyer's simple watercolor layouts with expressive characters make this a calming read, befitting the gentle affection in the text. The final page illustrates the Chinese character for "love."-Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Writing simply, like a love letter from parent to child, Lewis tells the true story of how she wrote to officials in China to find out if she could adopt a baby, and then went to China to bring her home. She takes a long journey there by plane, and falls in love with the tiny girl. I was so happy that I cried the moment I took you in my arms . . . you cried, too. She shoots a lot of pictures and kisses her little hands and tiny feet a hundred times. They fly home to meet all the relatives, and when the last cousin leaves, settle down to a lullaby and sweet sleep. The text ends with tears for the babys Chinese mother, who could not keep her; the last illustration is the Chinese character for love. An exotic but very readable type font adds spice to the gentle narrative. The illustrations are done in light-drenched colors, clear and rosy hues that match the bubbling joy of the text. Patterns in the clouds, in a rose-trimmed teacup, in the babys clothing and the mothers robes, echo that dulcet rhythm. Sure to delight many families whose own children may have come to this country, and to their families, by the same means, this is also a lovely way to introduce others to the concept of foreign-born adoption. Destined to become a classic. (Picture book. 4-7)
