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As someone who is a huge fan of good literature for children and happens to be an aspiring writer for children, I am sometimes offended when a celebrity “writes” a children’s book and then sells a bajiliion copies because of his or her celebrity. Good books for children are amazingly difficult to write and most celebrities don’t rise to the challenge.
But then there are some wonderful celebrity slash children’s authors out there, and one such person is Jamie Lee Curtis. If you aren’t familiar with her book Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born, then you should be!
This story is told from the point of view of a 4 or 5 year old child, asking her parents to tell her about the night she was born…starting with a phone call and a plane ride, and ending with lullabies and sleepless nights. It’s the story of a domestic adoption of a newborn, so it might not be the right story for children who were adopted as older children or who were adopted internationally, but I think it’s the story for children adopted doemstically. The birth mother is mentioned, but only briefly: “Tell me againe how you couldn’t grow a baby in your tummy, so another woman who was too young to take care of me was growing me and she would be my birth mother and you would adopt me and be my parents.”
This isn’t a book about adoption issues, but more an introduction to a child’s origin story with an adoptive twist. I think it’s very appropriate for a young child. The illustrations are hilarious, too: the scene where the a-parents are walking towards the maternity ward in the hospital is filled with cartoony asides, like the woman who’s just had septuplets and is being followed by a film crew, or the guy tottering down the hall next to the a-parents who is literally green. My seven-year-old spent a good deal of time looking at the pictures and laughing. This is a book with a good sense of humor.
