A Forever Family - Softcover

Grade 1-3-- A first-person photo essay that documents eight-year-old Jenny's life before and after her adoption. As black-and-white photos show her with friends and extended family, readers learn of her likes and dislikes amidst her accounts of positive experiences within the foster care and social service system. Her natural curiosity surfaces and surrounds the adoptive process, her biological parents, and the problems that caused them to surrender her to the authorities when she was three. This upbeat, loving, yet honest story has a picture book appearance that offers accessibility to beginning readers. Stylistically, it is similar to Banish's Let Me Tell You about My Baby (HarperCollins, 1988). Other works share similarities with it, such as Holtz's Foster Child (Messner, 1984; o.p.), Sobol's We Don't Look Like Our Mom and Dad (Coward, 1984), Greenberg's Adopted (Watts, 1987), and Rosenberg's Being Adopted (Lothrop, 1984), but none approximate the distinctive descriptions of Jenny's move from foster care to adoption. Whether for cultural awareness or a plain good read, this is a first-class choice. --Celia A. Huffman, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Cleveland
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