Babies Come From Airports

*UPDATE*  I should have kicked this post off with this in the beginning, but the title of the book comes from one of the young sons mentioning this thought that babies come from airports.  The dad quickly corrects him and the theme of the book IS NOT that babies come from airports.  The book is written from a child’s point of view and focusses more on the airport arrival of a sibling joining the family through international adoption.  The entire relatively short book takes place in a days time and does not encompass all facets of adoption.  *UPDATE*

We recently did a big book fundraiser with Suzanne from Usborne Books and it was such a fun and easy fundraiser.  Not only did we get some great financial support for our adoption, but we also scored a ton of free books.  I was completely shocked by the amount of free books so I let the kids order away.  I am crazy pleased with all the books we ended up with…every last kiddo got things they really love.

One of the books I ordered was Babies Come From Airports.  I’m kind of a weird when it comes to adoption books and pretty particular and I had not read this book before, but we we’re getting free books so I figured what the heck.  If I ended up not liking it, I could just donate it or see if another mama who has adopted liked it.  I do want to say I believe in different strokes for different folks.  I guarantee another parent who has adopted might read this and not like it, but I’m super particular about books that portray adoption and I really loved this one.

There are lots of things I like about this book so thought I’d just list some of them out.

*Right off the bat I love that it doesn’t place the parents in a “savior” role or as wonderful people because they adopted their children.  That’s a massive pet peeve of mine because goodness knows Josh and I are a mess, we’re no one’s Savior…God is… and all of our kids have blessed our socks off.  I don’t know how we got so dang lucky.  This book is more just about how adoption can make up a family and that’s it.  Lots of joy portrayed which I love.

*I like the child’s persecutive.  It’s a total kid perspective and one lots of kiddos might have who are adopted and not adopted.

*I like that it could appear maybe all 3 children in the book are adopted…so maybe no biological children.  I am completely making an assumption, but the parents look different than all 3 kiddos.  One son could maybe be assumed as a biological child, but you could really go either way.  It also doesn’t hurt that one little boy is clearly from Ethiopia (the Ethiopian flag is on his life book) and their new sister is coming home from China 🙂

*It talks about how children come from labor which I thought was neat because it could go in different directions of physical labor to birth a baby or the labor involved in adoption like paperwork. I also like how the child defines labor as “you work a lot”.  We’ve always told our children that adoption is a very careful process and there are lots of people involved and lots of paperwork involved because everyone wants the process done exactly right for the child.  We never want them to think you can just go pick up a kid flippantly…we want them to know there’s a process and a lengthy one at that…for a very good reason.

*I like how one of the boys, Adar, confuses airport security with an actual man named Security.  I also loved how he looked at Security as being someone he thought fondly of and not as something scary or hard.  Plus Security ends up being the sweetest older gentleman who whispered “Welcome to the USA” when he was a baby and his mom brought him home.  Adar draws Security the sweetest picture which you know is special because he has used drawing through out the book to keep track of all the things he wanted to show his mom when she returns from China…drawing is his thing.

*Adar gets separated from his dad and brother at the airport and airport security and Security ends up helping.  When Adar points out his dad security does ask “You sure?”…some parents might throw shade as this part, but honestly, it rang quite true with the outside world for our family.  As a multi-racial family we hear things like that a lot.  Adar simply says, “Yes, ma’am” and then points out his mom too.  It then shows the lady security officer crying when the Adar shares his picture he drew with the older gentleman Security.

*There’s diversity through out the book.  The mom and dad are of different races and on top of that it appears all three of their children are different races as well so a multi-racial family indeed.  And even though the people in the background at the airport are in black and white, they still display different family makeups and included women with head coverings.  Those are tiny details, but ones I thought were really neat.

*Near the end it shows two of the kids talking about their Gotcha day which was sweet and ends with a “Babies come from love” quote.

Here’s the straight up truth…I sobbed when I first read the book.  Now granted I’m not in the most emotionally stable of places currently and we’re bringing a son home from China soon, sooooo take it or leave it, but I really liked this book.  It’s a perfect read for Amon, our littlest and our new little guy.  Harper, Hudson and Solomon all humored me while I cried my way through it…and they might have laughed at me as well, but totally a win for the younger crowds.

If you would like to snag this book or others, just head over HERE and shop away.  There are so many great books and Suzanne was a gem to work with.

Happy Tuesday.