The Red Thread: A Book Review

While Jack has just discovered it, I've rediscovered our Public Library here in town. From the borderline scary illustrations of "Diaper David" board books to Origami Step By Step to Duck Goes Potty, many lessons learned and taken to heart. I also have been able to find a number of great books about adoption. Some are just fictional novels like the one I just finished called, THE RED THREAD  by Ann Hood. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The diversity of each couple and their obstacles and struggles during the adoption process is well developed.She also includes the parallel stories of each of the babies' birth mother, giving a glimpse inside the thoughts and very emotional and realistic struggles in abandoning their own children and the circumstances that are beyond their control.  It is an easy read that at the end puts you in that spot where you hope and pray to be in a few years, taking your child into your arms FOREVER.

Being a fictional novel, it is very different from the book I finished just prior called, THE LOST DAUGHTERS OF CHINA by Karin Evans. This book is an actual account of the process of the adoption and the transition to home life following the child being placed. It also gives a great deal of food for thought in it's vivid description of imagined birth mother stories and the situation with China's current and not so distant past laws about "one child" families and how those laws affect the age and gender of most of the children available for adoption now.

At this point, having finished the light-heartedness and easy read of a novel like THE RED THREAD, I have now taken on, CHINA GHOSTS by Jeff Gammage. This is a very compelling tale of the struggles while in China with their new 2- year old child, the explanation about her age, the welfare housing in China and thier own personal experience with their adoption. It is not a pretty painted picture of the China Adoption poster child. Definitely a must read for those actually taking on the adoption of a child from China or any international adoption in which the child will spend the first part of their life in the care of the welfare homes/orphanages.

If nothing else, I encourage you to take a better look at your own Public Library in town. Check out all that is available to you for the taking. Save your Amazon.com money for diapers :)