Customer Reviews

My China Workbook: a lifebook tool for kids adopted from China (English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Hindi, ... Gujarati, Bengali and Korean Edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My daughter and I made her lifebook together when she was 3.5 and we have read it many times since. She sometimes reads it to herself privately. We also talk frequently about all the issues/questions/feelings around her first year of life. Though Beth O'Malley's workbook covered much of the same ground, the fact that my daughter was filling in answers for herself felt different. Also, unlike the lifebook, which is largely a mother-written endeavor, the workbook was written by an adoption expert--and my daughter is getting to the stage where confirmation from a non-parent source matters!

This is an excellent resource in what I think of as a progression of lifebooks--the toddler lifebook (mainly photos), the small child lifebook
(photos plus more text and detail), this workbook, and eventually an
autobiography written by the teen adoptee. None of us ever really finishes writing our story, do we?

Claire McDonald
Mom to DD, age 7.5
President, Families with Children from Asia Winchester

I bought this not knowing whether it would be appropriate for my daughter, aged 7. It was, however, a perfect resource for her, guiding her gently to explore some of the facts and circumstances of her birth and life in China prior to my adopting her. She giggled at some questions, thought deeply about others, and seemed to really enjoy that she had the option to draw as well as to write (or dictate) her answers. We work on it together, some weeks a lot, and other weeks just a little. Like many things, creating this book is a process -- and a welcome one. I would highly recommend this to parents of children adopted from China.

I have three daughters adopted from China. I was so excited to get them each a copy of this book. I love Beth O'Malleys Lifebooks book, and I was a little disappointed to see that much of the verbiage in the China workbook is taken verbatim from the Lifebooks book. Also, the China workbook has several misspellings that should have easily been caught and corrected. I didn't see til after I received the book that it is just a packet of loose leaf pages...the picture on Amazon shows it as spiral bound, which it is not. OK, that was my mistake I guess for not reading the description closely enough. BUT, if it's going to be sent as looseleaf, I wish it wasn't 3 hole punched, because I would like to spiral bind it myself, and now it will have those 3 unused holes in it, and some of the graphics have a hole punched through them. Not earthshattering of course, but an irritation nonetheless.

The positives...my daughters are excited about the book and it will be fun for them to work through all the pages. It will be their special book, and will be a place for them to think about some questions and some of the pieces of their stories. Also, while we've talked about their stories a lot, there are a few questions the book asks that I never really thought to mention.

Overall, I would order this book again and I think it's worthwhile. I don't think it's as good as I was expecting it to be, though.