How I Wonder Where You Are

How I Wonder Where You Are effectively conveys the polarizing emotions that can surround adoption. Carla's adoptive family does not replace her first mother, and this book reinforces that it's okay to acknowledge the feelings of loss when transitioning into an adoptive family. The story also touches on the different experiences between Carla and her adoptive sister who looks and sounds like the rest of the family.

This book is beautifully illustrated, however, the white text over a beige background at points was difficult to read.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the perspective of an adoptive child joining an established family unit, especially in unfamiliar surroundings. How I Wonder Where You Are would also be great for adoptive children and families to read together, as the message is both realistic and optimistic.

The author does a great job of showing the emotions an adopted child can go through. It was nice seeing how the adopted child worked through these emotions to embrace her new family.

I devour books and stories about adoption. As an adoptive mom with a teen son that was born in Guatemala this was a great find on NetGalley. Thank you for the ARC for the purpose of this review. I am suggesting the title to all of the adoptive families I know! It was well written, appropriate for families that desire discussions with their children. A good jumping off point for having talks. Five stars. Beautiful illustrations.

How I wonder where your are is a little book full of big emotions. Books with all sorts of family's are important so all children feel included and so that other children understand that there are different types of family that's why this book is great.

This children's picture book tackles themes of adoption, birth family curiosity, and emotionally challenging school projects such as the family tree. Written by a social worker with experience in international adoption, the book felt real and acknowledging of all the complex and individual emotions a child may experience as an adoptee. The book was also beautifully illustrated, and the scenes complemented the dialogue. Some of the text was difficult to read, but I will chalk that up to formatting issues that often come across in electronic ARCs that don't display in printed editions or final electronic versions.

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I teared up while reading this book. It's short but packs a lot in. If I knew any international adoptees, I'd get them a copy.

I am really glad children's literature is now touching on these topics as I think it's really important. There's a lot of misunderstanding & judgement when it comes to adoption in today's world.

My only notes are that some of the text boxes could use some altering - for example, on page 16, the text is quite hard to read because of the white text on a white background.

Being a child of adoption as well as my husband we enjoyed this book very much so beautifully and thoughtfully written and illustrated I believe this book should be a staple in group home settings as well as personal libraries in homes that openly accept any child in need

This is a beautiful sensitively written book about adoption. It leads to many discussions with pupils and allows them to empathise with the experiences of other children. It also would be a great comfort to any adopted children in school.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are my own opinions.
This is my first book in the L.I.F.E Adventures series, and I am now going to look up book 1. It's very well written and displays the complex feelings and emotions an adopted child goes through. I think it will help kids to understand it's okay to miss your origin story when starting a new life chapter. Big feelings are to be expected.

It's also a good reminder to the parents that those big feelings are normal.

One of those books geared to Being Useful as opposed to being entertaining, this does have enough emotion in it to be re-readable, but might possibly have managed both in a stronger way. It concerns a Colombian girl, adopted by a white American family. So while they have a family tree as long as you'd like, she feels like a fallen branch, wondering how her mother thinks of her, and missing the food from home. I can't disagree at all with the people thinking she's too old for the part in the visuals, as she's practically a teenager, but the feelings of being left out, and having been pushed asunder at least once in her life, will resonate with many. How useful is a school's family tree exercise when she clearly has none of their DNA, and will the family recognise this? Like I say, this is really geared to practical lessons and discussion-forming, and in that is surely successful.

This story is one reason I don’t ask students to do family trees. Families can all look different, but even knowing that, a project like a family tree can bring up sad feelings. This book validates that.