ABC, Adoption & Me: A Sweet Picture Book about Adoption

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I have to admit when I saw, then read ABC, Adoption & Me by Gayle H. Swift and Casey A. Swift, I got teary-eyed 🙂

Why? because I am an adoptive mommy!

We adopted our son Jake at birth as a domestic adoption and also as a designated adoption. It’s a pretty magical story. Jake is almost 13 now, pushing 6 feet tall and eats like a horse!

Our family is so lucky to have Jake as our son in SO many ways. He is a true gift from God and one of two reasons I get out of bed every day.

When it comes to the details of his adoption, we have gotten the occasional ridiculous question from time to time, but we have not experience some of the uncomfortable (and down-right unkind) instances that many families of adopted kids encounter. THAT is yet another thing I love about ABC Adoption & Me as well. It very much brings home the message that, adopted children are just that…children.

{Click to Tweet} “B is for birthdays and belly buttons. Everybody has one, even adoptees like me!” Excerpt from ABC Adoption & Me! @RebeccFlansburg

When I asked author Gayle Swift about why she created this sweet book, she had this to say:

As adoptees, our children wrestle with big feelings, challenging issues and complex relationships. As parents. it is our privilege to walk a lifetime with them, supporting them through their journey to integrate dual heritages through birth and adoption. ABC, Adoption & Me provides an easy way to converse about adoption so that kids know their questions and concerns are welcome. It plants the seeds of open dialog and introduces some of the hard stuff in a way that is gentle and can lead to deeper discussions as children mature. As an adoption coach, I know that kids usually assume the “hard stuff” is off-limits unless parents demonstrate through words and actions, that parents are strong enough to acknowledge and validate all of their children’s thoughts and feelings on adoption. A book like ABC, Adoption & Me speaks through the child’s perspective; kids tell us that normalizes their emotions and thoughts.

ABC, Adoption & Me has been awarded Favorite Read of 2013 by Adoptive Families Magazine, Notable Picture Book of 2013 by Shelf Unbound and Honorable Mention Gittle List 2013, and named Finalist in the Independent Book Publishers of New England 2014 Book Awards. Earned an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards.

Another thing that I loved about ABC, Adoption & Me is that it presents adoption from the child’s point of view. This distinguishes it from the many books that focus on the joy parents experience through adoption and on reassuring adoptees how much they are loved. ABC, Adoption & Me celebrates the miracle of family and addresses the difficult issues faced in adoptive families as well. It truly provides an opportunity for readers to come away with a deeper understanding of what it means to be an adoptive family and provide teaching moments that bring families closer, connected in truth.

Loved this book! Thanks, Gayle!

Gayle H. Swift is the co-founder: GIFT Family Services and author: ABC, Adoption & Me: A Multicultural Picture book. Connect with Gayle and this book via Amazon Facebook Twitter Website Google+

**I was gifted a copy of this book from the author. Opinions expressed are purely my own.

ABC Adoption & Me is part of Multicultural Children’s Book Day!

Our mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.

The MCCBD team’s mission to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media.

NOTE: The full name of this event is Multicultural Children’s Book Day and our official hashtag is #ReadYourWorld.

For your information (include if you want to): The co-creators of this unique event are Mia Wenjen from Pragmatic Mom and Valarie Budayr from Jump Into a Book/Audrey Press. You can find a bio for Mia and Valarie here.

SPONSORS!

Multicultural Children’s Book day 2016 Medallion Level Sponsors! #ReadYourWorld

Platinum: Wisdom Tales Press * StoryQuest Books*Lil Libros

Gold: Author Tori Nighthawk*Candlewick Press,* Bharat Babies

Silver: Lee and Low Books*Chronicle Books*Capstone Young Readers T

Tuttle Publishing ,NY Media Works, LLC/KidLit TV* China Institute.org

Bronze: Pomelo Books* Author Jacqueline Woodson*Papa Lemon Books* Goosebottom Books*Author Gleeson Rebello*ShoutMouse Press*Author Mahvash Shahegh*Live Oak Media

Multicultural Children’s Book Day has amazing Co-Hosts and you can view them here.

All Done Monkey, Crafty Moms Share,Educators Spin on it,Growing Book by Book,Imagination Soup,,InCultural Parent, Kid World Citizen,Mama Smiles,Multicultural Kid Blogs,Spanish Playground

Classroom Reading Challenge: Help spread the word on our Classroom Reading Challenge ! This very special offering from MCCBD offers teachers and classrooms the chance to (very easily) earn a free hardcover multicultural children’s book for their classroom library. These books are not only donated by the Junior Library Guild, but they are pre-screened and approved by them as well.

What we could really use some help with is spreading the word to your teacher/librarian/classroom connections so we can get them involved in this program. There is no cost to teachers and classrooms and we’ve made the whole process as simple as possible. You can help by tweeting the below info:

{click to tweet} Teachers! Earn a FREE #Multicultural Kids Book for Your Classroom! #teachers, #books #teacherlife http://ow.ly/UUy96

To learn more about MCCBD and how you can get involved, go HERE.