[mayaprincess]

Do any of you have any books that you can recommend for a toddler on adoption. We have one about a panda but that is it. Cristian is now 2 1/2 so we are starting to really bring it up. This National Adoption Month, congrats to all. Praying for those of you still in
process.

[052001]

Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born - Jamie Lee Curtis

The Day We Met You - Phoebe Koehler

Let's Talk About It - Adoption - Fred Rogers

How I Was Adopted - Joanna Cole

These are books that I've read to my daughters since they were babies.

[mayaprincess]

Thank you, I ordered them from Amazon. I really appreciate it!

[dac_cincy]

A momma for Choco

The red blanket

I love you like crazy cakes

[guatparents2be]

not an adoption book but a beautiful book with beautiful illustrations of an interracial family.
Amazon.com: In My Heart: Molly Bang: Books
here is a review Adoption Book Review - Children's Book, In My Heart Helps Children to See that They Are Loved Even When Seperated from Parents

LOVE this one
Amazon.com: Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale (9780805050134): Karen Katz: Books

this one is sweet- maybe better for a little older but we read it to our 3 year old
Amazon.com: How I Was Adopted (Mulberry Books) (9780688170554): Joanna Cole, Maxie Chambliss: Books

and this one
Amazon.com: We See the Moon (9780972624404): Carrie A. Kitze: Books

[mayaprincess]

Thank you all so much!

[JustBarbara]

My sister bought this book for me the weekend before I flew to Guatemala to pick up DS. I had visited him at 3 months and had video I took that got me through the couple months thereafter. Anyway, dear sister gives me this book and I just sat down and started to read it and tears flowed down my face. This is a sweet, simple rhyming book ... I love your special face, your eyes, your mouth, I love your knees, your north, your south. I have been reading this to my son since he came home - he is now 3 1/2 and he still loves to look at the images as I read. Every page has a mother/child theme - the pictures in the sky show a big halfmoon cradling a little halfmoon, a big tree cradling a little tree ... it is one of our favorite books and still gets to me every time. We have also been talking about Guatemala and how I visited him - show him pictures of himself as a baby - and then when he came home. It is not an adoption book per se but it does convey a mother's love for her child - and everything about her child. Great bedtime reading.

[guatparents2be]

also we made a book through our i.photo but you can also do one through blurb or similar. it is a very simply worded book about DS's own adoption. it includes his referral pic, a photo of his birth mother holding him, a scan of the first info page we got about him, through meeting him for the first time at 3 weeks old with his foster mom and the details of our first visit trip. we would have done several volumes but after that i started blogging and we made that into a book. we re-read both books every few weeks or sometimes it will get shelved for a few months but then when we pick it back up we can get another level into our discussion about what adoption means, and also about his birth mother.

i'm so glad we have these books.

[JanetRenda]

In addition to the books others have mentioned, I have started to record any episodes of Adoption Stories (on the learning channel) that relate to Guatemalan Adoption. I watch them with my children and we talk about when we went to any of the places that they show (for example, Central Park in Antigua) and then we look at the pictures we have of us in those locations. My three and a half year olds like the idea of having been to places they see on TV.

[mamaskoby]

Also on Etsy you can make your own boardbook, with your own photos and your own story.

[nina107]

I love: God Found Us You by Tawn Bergren

[Devora]

We Wanted You by Liz Rosenberg & Peter Catalanotto: This is a beautifully illustrated story about how two parents waited for their son who was adopted from an unnamed country, but he clearly looks like he’s from Latin America. For a long time my son was captivated with this book. While the text talks about waiting for their son and bringing him home, the pictures are of the boy growing up and include illustrations of him as a baby, small child, and into high school. I also really like where they talk about the first/birth parents: “Somewhere in the world a mother gave birth to you, a father gave life to you. We weren’t your first father and mother. But we waited for you.”

Over the Moon by Karen Katz: Another story about adopting a child from a presumedly Latin American country. Very colorful illustrations. Some of the text I find a bit awkward, but it’s fine. I do edit the page where the parents tell their daughter about adoption. They refer to the child’s birth/first mother as “another lady” and talk about how she grew in her “tummy”. Personally, I think referring to a birth/first mother as “another lady” is too impersonal. So I change the wording to acknowledge that she was the child’s other mother. I also don’t like using the word “tummy” to talk about pregnancy because I think too often kids equate “tummy” with “stomach”. Otherwise, the book is fine. I do like how it talks about the anticipation while the adoptive parents were waiting and how they were nervous (and excited) on the first day. There’s also mention of foster parents (although they’re not called that).

A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza: A charming story about a little bird who is looking for his mother. He asks many animals, but they all say that they can’t be his mother because they don’t look like him. Mrs. Bear, however, focuses on what a mother would do (kiss him, hug him, sing and dance with him, etc.) and asks if Choco would like her to be his mother. He goes home with her and discovers that her other children are an alligator, pig, and hippo. We used this book to introduce our 3-year old nephew to the idea that we would be adopting our son. It’s also available in Spanish and is one of the books that we took when we visited our son and left with his foster family. His foster mother loved the book because she said it made her think about the children she’s fostered – she clearly saw herself as Mrs. Bear. But for young children you would need to make the connection to adoption because they aren't likely to make it on their own.