Kids Like Me in China [Hardcover]

Brian Boyd (Author, Photographer), Ying Ying Fry (Author), Terry Fry (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

In this first view of China adoption from a child's perspective, eight-year-old Ying Ying Fry returns to her orphanage to remember what it is like and to write a story so that other adopted children will understand where they came from. Kids Like Me in China combines real-life photos with the forthright observations and complex feelings of an adopted child as she meets caregivers and befriends children in the city where her life began. This book will inspire all adopted children to take charge of their own life stories.

Eight-year-old Ying Ying Fry is a Chinese American girl growing up in San Francisco. But her story didn't begin there. Like lots of kids she knows, Ying Ying spent her first months in China--in a birth family she cannot remember and an orphanage in Changsha, Hunan province, where her American parents adopted her when she was a tiny baby.

When Ying Ying goes back to visit Changsha, she can't wait to see her orphanage caregiver--someone who knew her and loved her when she lived in China. Meeting Li Ayi is just the beginning, as Ying Ying discovers points of connection with all the orphanage children--babies, toddlers and school-age kids. Outside the orphanage she visits children at home, at playgrounds and at school, and these friendships too help her see her life story in a new light. A child of two countries, Ying Ying is determined to claim both as her own.

Kids Like Me in China combines real-life photos with the forthright observations and complex feelings of an adopted child as she ponders what her early life might have been like. The first view of China adoption from a child's perspective, Kids Like Me will inspire all adopted children to take charge of their own life stories.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An inspiration for all adopted children to tell what they think and feel about the early chapters of their lives. -- Jane Brown, MSW, adoption educator

How marvelous that in telling their own stories children can embrace their connections to many layers of people and places. -- Sara Dorow, author of When You Were Born in China

Kids Like Me in China [is] quite simply tremendously important. -- Gail Steinberg, co-author of Inside Transracial Adoption

Ms. Fry writes with such delight and keen observation, you feel like you are visiting the orphanage with her. -- Rose Lewis, author of I Love You Like Crazy Cakes

On the difficult issues..., she combines a thoughtful, informed understanding with a kid's straightforward approach. -- Kay Johnson, professor of Asian studies and politics at Hampshire College

From the Inside Flap

"Ms. Fry writes with such delight and keen observation, you feel like you are visiting the orphanage with her. Every adopted child will love to read this book again and again. It is their story too."
--Rose Lewis, author of I Love You Like Crazy Cakes

"How marvelous that in telling their own stories children can embrace their connections to many layers of people and places. Kids Like Me in China paves the way for parents and children to explore the layers of their own histories and identities. It is a playful, thoughtful and refreshingly accessible story."
--Sara Dorow, author of When You Were Born in China

"Now that our kids are getting older, they need to hear the voices of their peers, not just adults, as they figure out where they came from and why. Ying Ying is the first child adopted from China to tell her own story, and she does it very well indeed. On the difficult issues of abandonment and why one finds so many girls in Chinese orphanages, she combines a thoughtful, informed understanding with a kid's straightforward approach to explain clearly what parents so often struggle to discuss with their kids. This will be a great book for the China adoption community."
--Kay Johnson, professor of Asian studies and politics at Hampshire College and co-author of "Infant Abandonment and Adoption in China"

"We don't have to wait until children are adults to help them tell their own life stories. Kids Like Me in China is an inspiration for all adopted children to begin to tell us what they think and feel about the early chapters of their lives."
--Jane Brown, MSW, adoption educator

"Kids Like Me in China [is] quite simply tremendously important . . ., must reading for everyone eager to understand some of the deepest issues of adoption: connecting, belonging, and identity."
--Gail Steinberg, co-author of Inside Transracial Adoption

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 44 pages
• Publisher: Yeong & Yeong Book Company (November 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963847260
• ISBN-13: 978-0963847263
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #86 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > Chinese

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important resource, October 6, 2002

By 

Katy Robinson "author" (Boise, Idaho United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kids Like Me in China (Hardcover)

As an adult Korean adoptee and the author of a memoir about my own adoption experience, I was excited to read "Kids Like Me In China." This book is extremely well written and serves as an important resource for adoptive parents and their children. I only wish a book such as this one would have been available when I was a child growing up in Salt Lake City - often feeling like I was the only Asian and the only adopted person in the whole world. How wonderful that today's children can hear about the adoption experience - told with warmth, curiosity and honesty - from one of their peers, as well as see their faces reflected in the beautiful photographs throughout the book.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiration and encouragement for adoptees, June 23, 2002

By 

Mirim Kim (Fargo, ND United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kids Like Me in China (Hardcover)

I love--abosutely LOVE--Ying Ying Fry's book _Kids Like Me in China--because she addresses (actually quite sophisticated and complex) arguments of adoption research in a personal way, such as saying that sometimes she wondered what it would be like to grow up in an orphanage with the other children, and sometimes when she saw all the babies in the orphanage she had to leave the room. She didn't say (her mother, the editor/transcriber, and her publisher didn't force her to say) that she went back to China, saw the poor starving children, and now feels lucky to be an American-adopted kid. I love how her narrative opens up spaces for other adopted kids to say--yeah, so what if I DID grow up in an orphanage? The woman Ying Ying meets in the book is a part-time model. That's hardly the half-naked, groveling, uneducated street beggar I was told I'd be without the "fortune" of being adopted. When I read Ying Ying's book, I felt so proud of her as a little-sister-adoptee. The vow that I made last year, that I will dedicate my life to better the lives of other adoptees, is a little bit easier to keep knowing that others out there--even a young elementary-school child--are able to take steps in that direction. I lack Ying Ying's language proficiency and connections/background of adoptive parents, but so do many other adoptees. I don't want to speak for adoptees at large. I want to assert the right to tell my story, and in telling my story I want to simultaneously break down the white, male, non-adoptee gaze that assimilates and twists my story to further its own socio-political agenda, and I want to--as Ying Ying has done--set my story out there as an example for other kids. We adoptees have few models. When I read Ying Ying's story, I could both identify with her and say, "that was different for me." The process really helped me to clarify what I wanted to say, and it also encouraged me--that if Ying Ying could do it, so can I.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Upbeat but frank: adopted child visits where she came from, October 24, 2001

By 

Terry Roberts (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kids Like Me in China (Hardcover)

The book is very reminiscent of "When You Were Born in China." It's hardback, has lots of big pictures on every page, and has a relatively small amount of text. The big difference is that the pictures are in bright color. My (...) daughter was immediately taken with the book, and spent a long time paging through it, looking at the pictures. With me reading it to her, it takes about 30-45 minutes to read this book, without stopping to talk about the pictures much.

The pictures are mostly of kids (all ages) and caregivers at the Changsha orphanage, where Ying Ying, the 8-year-old author, is from. The orphanage is in good shape: it has new cribs for the babies, bright new clothes for all the kids, etc. But there are lots and lots of those cribs to a room, and the text talks about how busy the ayis are, taking care of all the kids. There are frank pictures of special needs kids. There are also pictures of older kids at school (mostly giving performances, rather than
sitting at desks). And there are pictures at a kid's home, which could pass as an American home, complete with laptop computer.

The text is upbeat, articulate, and frank. It's told from Ying Ying's point of view, in a child's "voice." She focuses on the positives in things, while explicitly acknowledging the negatives. Some quotes: "I was really excited and also a little scared." "I don't think the Ayis ever stop working. They hardly ever sit down." "Sometimes I think about [my birthmother]. But I don't talk about it much. Sometimes I just looked at all those babies in all those cribs and I didn't know what to think. Sometimes I just had to leave the room." "Sometimes when my parents were in another part of the orphanage, I'd go to my friends' rooms to play. It was different without my parents there. I talked more, and the kids asked me more questions: 'Do you like America? Do you like China? Do you like your parents?' Yes, yes, yes." There are a few pages that cover the reasons why there are so many kids in the orphanage, and why most of the
infants are girls.

The author of the book is listed as Ying Ying Fry, "with Amy Klatzkin," her mother. I approached this a bit cautiously, because I've seen a little too much of parents putting words into their kids' mouths. The acknowledgements section addresses this explicitly: "The text was constructed from Ying Ying's journal, and from audiotapes, videotapes and interviews with her. The opinions, observations and questions are all hers, and she exercised final approval over the wording." We know Ying
Ying a little, not closely. I do think this seems like a good representation of what a girl like her would feel. While frank, the book represents a fundamentally upbeat outlook.

I'm very happy to have this book for my daughter, who is also from China. While it addresses hard issues, it does it in a way that isn't going to create any trauma that a child doesn't already feel. On the contrary, the book shows an example of a kid who can think about hard things and still have a great outlook. A wonderful role model for my kid. As with "When You Were Born in China", I'd suggest this book for elementary-school aged kids.