August 30, 2010
Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition and author (Pretty Birds), shares an entertaining and affecting narrative about his experience of adopting two daughters from China and his take on what it means to be a father. While he doesn't go into personal whys and wherefores, he animatedly relates the journey that he and his wife, Caroline Richard, took to parenthood: falling in love with the thumbnail photo of the infant who became their daughter, Elise; meeting her in Nanchang; bringing her home to join a French-Irish-Catholic-Jewish extended family in Chicago; and returning to China to adopt Paulina, their second daughter. Almost a prerequisite in any book about adoption is the question of attachment after abandonment, and Simon nimbly acknowledges and dispels Nancy Verrier's concept (from The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child) while guiding adoptive parents toward compassionate awareness. Simon's answer to "Can I love someone's else's child as much as my own?" is a resounding "Yes! Yes! At least as much and more!" – which echoes the tone of his lively, openhearted book. This adoptive parenting memoir is a standout among books on the subject, with Simon on the page much the same as Simon on the radio – informative, enlightening, and enjoyable.
August 1, 2010
NPRs Weekend Edition host Scott Simon and his wife decided to end their already lengthy fertility treatments, coming to the conclusion that wizardry does not always deliver a pregnancy. His engaging memoir begins with their visit, along with four other couples, to an orphanage in Nanchang, China, where they have come to pick up their daughter Elise, the first of two daughters they adopt from China. Simons memoir touches on the many threads that make up the whole adoption processfrom the initial choice to go through an international agency, the endless forms to be filled out, and the exhaustive background checksto their worries about the birth mother, and the doubts over whether or not they are doing the right thing for themselves or for the baby. Simon weaves into his and his wifes experience the adoption stories of friends, including sports commentator and novelist Frank Deford and his wife, who adopt a Filipino baby after their daughter dies of cystic fibrosis. An illuminating, heartwarming account of the many facets of adoption, written with Simons signature style and wit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)