The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption - Softcover

Okimoto, Jean Davies

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0989429164 ISBN 13: 9780989429160

Publisher: Endicott & Hugh Books, 2015

Synopsis

Many people from North America make the long journey to their children in China. But first the family has to complete all the adoption-agency paperwork, have interviews, fill out legal forms, and receive approvals. Then a tiny photograph of their child arrives. Finally, they travel to China to embrace their long-awaited child.

About this title

About the Author:

Jean Davies Okimoto, daughter of an adoptee, is the author of numerous numerous well-regarded books for children. She is a psychotherapist and lives in Seattle, Washington.

Dr. Elaine M. Aoki is director of the Lower School at the Bush School in Seattle. She is editor of KALEIDOSCOPE, the NCTE Review of Multicultural Literature, and a judge for the Orbis Pictus Award. She and her husband are the adoptive parents of a dautghter from China.

Meilo So has illustrated several books, including Judy Sierra's Tasty Baby Belly Buttons and The 20th Century Children's Poetry Treasury (both Knopf). She was born in Hong Kong and lives with her husband and their daughter in the Shetland Islands, U.K.

From Publishers Weekly:

This tender, ebullient picture book tracks a quartet of parents in North America and a quartet of baby girls in China as everyone prepares for the "special day" they meet. Okimoto (the daughter of an adoptee) and Aoki (the mother of an adoptee) effectively contrast the flurry of excited activity on one side of the world ("In Toronto, Howard Suzuki sang in the shower while Jessica dried her hair") with the peacefully slumbering babies on the other ("Li Shen snuggled on her side. Qian Ye slept curled in a ball"). Readers get a peek at the mechanics of international adoption (including the long plane trip and bus ride to the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou) and the emotions of the prospective parents (the government waiting room was "as silent as still water." But their hearts "thumped like drums and fluttered like the wings of a bird"). Set against clean white backdrops, So's (Tasty Baby Belly Buttons) expressive watercolors bloom like spring flowers. The parents emerge as distinct individuals, each exuding a unique energy-an impressive feat given the economy of line with which the artist articulates each impressionistic illustration. With its matter-of-fact mix of parents that include two married couples, a lesbian couple and a single mother, the book's understated message-that families come in all shapes and sizes, and are bound together by love-comes through loudly and clearly. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Endicott & Hugh Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0989429164
• ISBN 13: 9780989429160
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 34
• Illustrator: So Meilo