Here's another book that I previously reviewed on my Adopt Russia blog. I think this is a review worth repeating, however, since this book is a general adoption book and will probably appeal to many people...especially if you enjoy a good cry!

The Sea Chest was written by Toni Buzzeo and is illustrated by Mary GrandPre, of Harry Potter fame. It is a truly wonderful story that transcends the typical limits of most adoption books for children. This is probably my favorite adoption book for children, and one of my favorite non-adoption books, too.

Warning: it is guaranteed to make you cry, especially if you're a mom. (I'm actually tearing up right now just thinking about it!) My older son asks me to read it simply to torture me - it's so beautifully written and touching that no matter how many times I read it I always break down in tears.

It starts as Aunt Maita tells her great-grandniece the story of her childhood on an island in Maine eighty years before. She and her parents lived on the lighthouse island. Her father was the lighthouse keeper. She was happy there, but lonely, keeping track of the rhythms of nature and waiting for the supply-boat to arrive to bring news and company.

One night there's a storm and from the safety of the lighthouse she and her mother wait as a ship suffers against the wind. The next morning the world is calm once again and they walk the beach looking for wreckage.

From the mass of pillows and mattresses they hear a sound that Maita thinks might be a kitten, but when they untie the bundle they find a leather sea chest. Inside is a baby. The baby has a note tied around her wrist: she is the daughter of the captain and his wife, cast onto the ocean in the hope that she will live as they know they will not.

The lighthouse family keeps the baby and she is raised as Maita's sister. The two girls are happy together, and live close to each other even until after they are married and have families of their own. Maita's sister is the young girl's grandmother, and she died the spring before, "leaving me an only child again."

The young girl is sad for a moment, but then she looks at the sea chest that her grandmother had travelled in so many years before. It's been lined with a quilt, waiting "for the tiny stranger my mama and papa have gone to fetch from so far across the wide Atlantic."