What’s a book that completely surprised you?

One for the Murphy’s by Lynda Mullaly Hunt was an in incredible read for me and one I like to point others to when they cannot understand what it means to be in my position.

I adopted kids and when they hit eighteen they ran off to be with their birth mom thinking it would solve all their problems. It has not. My kids were never in the foster system and had been through about seven homes when they moved in with us. I had them both read this book because they struggled a lot with their feelings.

People really do not understand the trauma and biological imperative an adopted child has to want to reach out to their birth parent. I know my kids thought it would undo all the pain and suffering they went through their whole lives. To this day they wonder what their life would have been like if they had never been separated.

When getting ready to adopt and doing some fostering, I began to seek out books and other media for adoptive kids. I wanted them to have something in our home that they could relate to. Something that would help them identify their feelings. I found this book about one or two years into the adoption. At first, I thought the ending was definitely going to go one way, but then it went the other way.

It was a beautiful story about a child being pushed and pulled different ways without agency. I think it did an excellent job expressing the turmoil the girl goes through as the story plays out. So when people do not understand what my kids are going through because they only see the pain I am having because I am still here, I suggest this book to them. It is beautiful and real in a way that a lot of books about this subject are not.