My New Family: A First Look at Adoption

by Pat Thomas, Pat Thomas

Children are sometimes upset to discover that they have been adopted. This book helps them understand how lucky they are to have to have loving, adoptive parents—and how lucky their parents are to have them! A First Look At� is an easy-to-understand series of books for younger children. Each title explores emotional issues and discusses the questions such difficulties invariably raise among kids of preschool through early school age. Written by a psychotherapist and child counselor, each title promotes positive interaction among children, parents, and teachers. The books are written in simple, direct language that makes sense to younger kids. Each title also features a guide for parents on how to use the book, a glossary, suggested additional reading, and a list of resources. There are attractive full-color illustrations on every page. (Ages 4�7)

Genres: Adoption, Picture Books, Childrens, Family

32 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

About the author

There is more than one Pat Thomas in the Goodreads catalog. This entry focuses on Pat^Thomas, children's author.

Pat is a trained psychotherapist, naturopath and journalist. After working as a journalist and broadcaster in the USA, she now works in the field of child development and writes for various publications including 'Practical Parenting'.

Reviews

[Rivkah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book that explains the idea of adoption, including from foster care, to younger children. Of course it’s a little dated, as it was published in 2003. As another review mentioned, I didn’t particularly like the statement that the adoptive parents “needed“ a child, as they don’t need them as much as a child needs a family. Otherwise, it was appropriate and my five-year-old and 11-year-old appreciated reading it.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of this book is really good, but the handful of problematic sentences make it hard to recommend. First the good: the book speaks clearly and directly to children, there is respect for all members of the adoption triad, the challenges of and complicated feelings around adoption are acknowledged, and the illustrations are cheerful and engaging, and feature a diverse range of characters. (Characters are diverse in terms of age, skin color, and cultural dress, but they are all able-bodied.)

Another plus: this is one of the few books to specifically include foster care as part of a typical adoption journey.

However, the second sentence of the book says, “You needed a family and your parents needed a child to love and care for.” This makes me deeply uncomfortable; every child needs to attach to one or two consistent and loving caregivers for healthy brain development, but most adults can manage to be healthy without raising children. While many adults have a deep-seated and strong desire to raise children, I think “need” overstates the case.

The next problematic sentence: “When your adoptive parents first saw you, they knew you were meant to be a part of their family.” When the relation begins as foster care, this is often not the case. Foster parents love their foster kids, but our first goal is reunification, and we don’t know from the beginning how the case will turn out.

Finally, the resources for parents at the end assume that the birth parents made an adoption plan. Particularly when adopting from foster care, this is often not the case, and I wish more books normalized that.

If those problematic bits don’t seem problematic to you, then this might be a good book for your family. But I can’t recommend it.

[Yolandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for 5-8 year olds. My daughters loved it and read it many times. It explains the process of modern adoption very well.

[Madison · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the most unique book that I chose, rather than it focusing on celebrating and getting excited about the act of adoption, it focuses on how the child who was adopted may feel. It explores the ideas that adopted children may be scared, nervous, confused, and questionable about where they came from and where they are going.

The illustrations in this book appear very outdated (which makes sense since the book is older). They almost seem to be filled in with colored pencils. The illustrations are very simplistic which allows for the text to speak more than them.

I thought this book was very interesting- from the start it definitely caught my attention. This picturebook dives into a topic that is not spoken about nearly as much. It is not just a happy feeling book, but rather explores other emotions and feelings.

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thesis project is a support group for adoptive families using literacy. The main goal is to strengthen and encourage positive attachment and identity. These are possible books to be used for the group and ones that I want to own for my own children someday, too.

This book is a little dry and on the non-fiction infomational side. The pictures are cute. It does cover foster families and older children being adopted which is good. I like the ideas and suggestions on how to use the book at the end of it. It may be a good book to share first with the group, since it covers everything nicely.

[Mina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"both...sets of parents have given you something special"

This book focuses on the importance of helping a child through the confusion they may feel once they are told that they were adopted. It helps the child understand that they are loved, not matter what and that their former parents may have had unfortunate circumstances where they couldn't take care of them. I believe that it is important for there to be multiple books like this out there. The language used in the book is simplified so that the child that has access to it can easily relate to the book and have a closer text-to-self connection.

[Jodi Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Family dynamics, adoption, differences, and self-identity are all good ways to use this book in the classroom.