A mom in one of my Yahoos groups asked about adoption books for boys. They are hard to find, but not impossible. And there are plenty of gender-neutral choices out there.
Here are my favorites:
A Mother for Choco, by Keiko Kasza
My all-time favorite adoption book. It's the story of a bird - a BOY bird! - who is lonely because he has no mom but everyone he asks says they can't be his mom because they don't look alike. Finally a bear asks him to be her son and says their looks don't matter because she can give him hugs and dance with him and feed him pie. Lovely, lovely story with funny illustrations that always make kids laugh.
Through Moon and Stars and Night Skies, By Ann TurnerAn oldie but goodie. And it's about A BOY!! It follows his journey to his new family and features him telling his own story, which is super sweet. Don't miss the illustration of him being driven home - basically sitting on a basket on the front seat!! My son noticed that one right away. :-)
Sesame Street's We're Different, We're the Same AND I Don't Have Your Eyes by Carrie Kitze
Both feature boys and girls and have the same great thread - we may look different on the outside, but we share traits and we share love.
I Am a T. Rex from the Dinosaur Train TV show
Buddy the T. Rex is adopted into a family of Pterandons. From the PBS Kids show of the same name, this is Buddy's birth story.
Let's Talk About It: Adoption by Fred Rogers.Yes, a Mister Rogers book. And other than the fashions and hairstyles, it's shockingly current. It features all sorts of families and talks about why kids are adopted. Deals very sensitively with some thorny issues surrounding adoption.
The Family Book by Todd ParrVery simple and geared toward little kids, but it's so fun and colorful that kids much older still enjoy it. It just simply shows ALL kinds of families., from adoptive to single-parent to gay parents to inter-racial. Also some funny stuff mixed in like families that all have the same hairstyle - even the pets.
Disney's TarzanThe classic tale of the by raised by gorillas. Just make sure you read the copy before you choose one. Some of them have some not so great wording, like 'real mother.'
The Red Thread: An Adoption Fairy Tale by Grace LinA king and queen go in search of the red thread pulling at their hearts and end up finding a baby in China. The last page shows the baby to be a girl, but until then it's pretty gender-neutral.
Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born by Jamie Lee CurtisMy second-favorite adoption book. A little girl tells the story of her adoption - but there is nothing "girly" about it. Only the cover and the last page shows a girl. And all the text could be about a boy or a girl. Sample page: "Tell me again abut the first night you were my daddy and you told my about baseball being the perfect game, like your daddy told you." At first I thought this book didn't apply to us because it's about a domestic adoption at birth, but now this is exactly how my son tells his own adoption story. "Mama, were you so excited to meet me that you wore the wrong color socks?" "Did I poop for the first time at the Temple of Heaven?" I LOVE this book.
Letter of Love from China by Bonnie CuzzolinoAgain, there's a girl on the cover and the last page, but that's it. This book is really wonderful as it's written by a birth mother in China. It's very sensitively done and assuring to a child, at least in my opinion. And as an added bonus, there's something so soothing about the word choice and syntax that - just like Goodnight Moon used to do - it puts my son straight to sleep.
Do you have any to add to my list???
