Customer Reviews

Seeds of Love: For Brothers and Sisters of International Adoption

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

 

 

This is the first book our 22-month-old child ever asked me to read by name! My husband and I leave tomorrow for St. Petersburg, Russia to adopt our second child, and "Seeds of Love" has helped immeasurably to help us prepare our son for our absence and to help him anticipate being a big brother to his new baby sister. The book gently raises and answers many of the questions and concerns a child would have when anticipating being separated from his/her parents for an extended period of time. A must for brothers and sisters of international adoption!

Ten years ago we adopted an infant girl from Korea. Her brother was 30 months old the day they met. For years our favorite adoption book was "Katie-Bo". This was very much the story of our adoption as known by our son and his preschool age cousins. SEEDS OF LOVE is a very similar book for any preschooler who will gain a sibling through adoption travel rather than airport meetings. The story told in SEEDS OF LOVE is one of happiness, sadness, confusion, and love. All of these emotions go with the process of adoption and with the process of having parents leave home. This book is important because it provides a clear story with a message of love for all children in a family. With small variations, this is the story of adoption as known by many preschool age siblings.

I highly recommend this book! We're in the process of adopting a baby boy from Russia, and I searched for books that explain adoption to the sibling already at home. This book has been a great way to start to prepare our 3-year-old for a baby sibling who will arrive in a different way. It's about a little girl whose parents are adopting internationally - they travel without the little girl to bring home a baby girl, so the book also deals with separation while parents travel. It never mentions what country the baby is from, and it's easy to substitute "boy" as appropriate when reading. Our daughter now "reads" the book to herself because she knows it by heart, and tells everyone that she's adopting a baby brother from Russia.

This is a story about a big sister waiting for her little sister to be brought home. It is written from the perspective of the big sister and discusses the questions and concerns she has regarding her sister and the time needed to go get her... "I didn't know babies came from airplanes." "You will be gone for such a long time." "Who will take care of me while you are gone, and will Grandma know to cut the crusts off of my bread like you?"

Even though this book is written very well, I knew in reading it first that a lot of the questions that it discussed did not pertain to my kids... they know that babies do not come from airplanes, and they spend enough time with Grandma to know that if they had to stay with her while we go and get the babies that they would be well taken care of. However, in spite of 'my' review, it is very sweet book and my children love reading it!

*Obviously illustrated, the baby sister is from China*