Happy Adoption Day!

by John McCutcheon, Julie Paschkis (Illustrator)

Overview

This adaptation of McCutcheon's song commemorates the day when a child joins an adoptive family. Complete with musical notation, these verses reassure adopted children they are special. Full-color illustrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316603232
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	05/01/2001
Series:	Adventures of Minnie Merriweather Series
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	258,059
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.18(d)
Lexile:	350L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

John McCutcheon is an American folk music singer and multi-instrumentalist who has produced thirty-four albums since the 1970s. He is regarded as a master of the hammered dulcimer, and is also proficient on many other instruments including guitar, banjo, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, and jawharp.

Julie Paschkis is a painter, textile designer, and award winning illustrator of books for children. Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams by Janet Wong was a 2000 New York Times Best Illustrated Book. Yellow Elephant by Julie Larios received a 2006 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award Book. Many of her books have been named to Best Books of the Year lists including Glass Slipper, Golden Sandal by Paul Fleischman, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a BookSense Pick, a New York Times Public Library 100 Best Book, and a Kirkus Best Book for 2007.

Editorial Reviews

Inspired by a friend's tradition, noted children's singer/songwriter McCutcheon created this original song for those who might like to mark a special anniversary in their family's life: adoption day. His thoughtful lyrics (the score is included, of course) emphasize the joy and wonder of the event: "Out of a world so tattered and torn,/ You came to our house on that wonderful morn/ And all of a sudden this family was born" and there's a rousing chorus just right for a festive party. In a move sure to accommodate many adoptive families, Paschkis (So Sleepy/Wide Awake) pictures the parents as white and the baby as Asian. Her gouache illustrations have a strong hint of traditional Scandinavian folk art, updated by bold color combinations, and they lend themselves particularly well to the multiethnic cast of friends and family with which she peoples each page. For a pleasingly themed read-aloud or gift, pair this volume with Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell's equally merry Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

PreS-K: McCutcheon's song, written from the point of view of adoptive parents, is joyous and reassuring -- "Whatever you learn, whoever you know,/You've still got a home in our hearts." Paschkis's folklike gouache paintings are attractive and well designed to incorporate the text. However, they illustrate more than the annual celebration. They show scenes of the (Caucasian) adoptive parents making preparations for the baby's arrival, the adoptive parents in an airplane, the (Asian) baby in its new cradle, and the growth of the child. In every scene, everyone is smiling. The song mentions mixed-race and single-parent families: "No matter the skin, we are all of us kin." But another line in that verse sends a confusing message: "No matter how you came to be." That line, from the parents' point of view, is a message of acceptance, but a child may understand it as "It shouldn't matter to you how you came to be." The book reinforces the second interpretation by not picturing the baby before its appearance in the adoptive home, as though it had no history of its own. The relinquishment that precedes adoption does matter to the adoptee but is often hard for adoptive parents to talk about. This book does not help them to do so.

School Library Journal

McCutcheon pens a happy, easily sung song for the day a long-awaited child joins an adoptive family and "a family was born," including musical notation so everybody can sing along. Paschkis's bright illustrations borrow from folk art to lend vibrancy to the celebratory mood of a book that clearly, straightforwardly, and lovingly answers a need for families built by adoption.

Kirkus Reviews