I love doing reviews of new adoption books. There’s so many more books available now than when we started our journey. Many are written by adoptive parents who are putting pen to paper to create a resource to help their children understand adoption.
I was really excited when Sarah McGeough got in touch to introduce me to her books. “Eddy Finds a Family” is her debut book which she wrote during the first lockdown in 2020. She wrote it to help her son understand what adoption is and how it created their family. If you’d like to read Sarah’s article about her adoption journey and what motivated her to write her books, click here.
I was kindly gifted a copy of the book so I could review it. You can find out more about Sarah’s books from her website and you can follow her on Instagram.
Eddy Finds a Family
“Eddy Finds a Family” is beautifully illustrated by Stephanie Lidbetter. The story starts by introducing Flossy and Frank, two flamingos who longed to have a family. Their friend suggests adoption might be a great way for them to become parents. The story follows Flossy and Frank as they discover more about adoption and decide it’s the way they want to create their family.
The story then moves on to focus on Eddy, a little Emu who was living with a foster frog. Eddy’s parents weren’t able to look after him and Stella Stork is looking for a family for him. She decides Flossy and Frank would be great parents for Eddy and the story then explores how they all get ready to meet each other.
The final page of the book gives a great explanation of what adoption is. It explains that not all families are made in the same way and explores some of the feelings a child might feel about all of it.
“Eddy Finds a Family” is a lovely story which tackles big issues like adoption and birth parents not being able to care for their child, in a gentle, child friendly way. I love how colourful and bold the characters and illustrations are and how the story explains the adoption process.
Life story tool
Our eldest daughter really enjoyed the book. She read it to her younger sister and understood the story straight away. When the story talked about Eddy living with a foster frog, she tried to explain to her sister that it was like when they lived with their foster carers. That started a lovely conversation with our eldest about her time living with their foster carers.
Our youngest loves looking at the pictures in her life story book, but she’s not interested in the words. Using a book like “Eddy Finds a Family” is a great way for us to introduce the concept of adoption, and words like social worker and foster carer. Hopefully, when she’s ready, she’ll have a better understanding of how that relates to her history.
Whilst the book is a great resource for all adoptive families, I think it will be of huge benefit to children who are a bit older when they’re adopted. The story doesn’t just cover how Flossy and Frank are feeling before they meet Eddy. It also explores his feelings and thoughts about meeting his new family. He has worries about what it’s going to be like and what if they don’t like each other? I think that will help older children understand that any feelings they had or have like that, are completely natural.
The book would also be a great resource for foster carers. Particularly when they’re preparing older children for the move to their new family.
I’d definitely recommend Eddy Finds a Family to all parents as a great way of helping their kids understand adoption. You can buy the book from Sarah’s website or from Amazon.
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Please note that this review includes an affiliate link for the book. That means if you click on the link to the book through Amazon, and then buy it, I get paid a fee from Amazon.
