Book Review: A Place in My Heart

by Mary Grossnickle, illustrated by Alison Relyea

Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishing 2014, $15.95, hardcover, 36 pages

A note from Mary Grossnickle:

A Place in My Heart is the result of my own experience with adoption, and also the result of talking to many children who were adopted. Feelings about birth parents are real and valid emotions, and they need to be acknowledged and even nurtured.

A Place in My Heart is a wonderful demonstration of how parents can talk with young children about adoption. The language and story are appropriate for early school-aged children (5 to 9 years old). The author shows us that parents need to — gently, but persistently — help kids find ways to articulate about their questions and worries about adoption and birth family.

The night we first meet Charlie (a chipmunk who was adopted by squirrels), his mother tells him his adoption story. Although he’s heard the story many times before, with this retelling, he realizes for the first time that being adopted means having two sets of parents.

But rather than just stop there, a tack taken all too often by kids’ adoption books, the story goes on to explore what goes on inside — emotionally — for Charlie as he thinks about all this adoption and birth family stuff. Having two families is a very weighty idea for a little guy, something that makes him stop and ask himself a lot of questions. He asks these questions while he’s hiding in his quiet thinking place. He struggles and speculates all by himself. Alison Relyea’s vibrant illustrations do a wonderful job of conveying Charlie’s — and his family’s — emotions as the story unfolds.

Like many an adopted child, Charlie doesn’t go to his mother to talk about his struggles; his worries are not laid out for his mother to see clearly. Instead, he gets in fights with his brothers and sisters, doesn’t listen to his mother, and breaks all the rules. His mother understands that Charlie is telling her with his behavior that something is bothering him, and that she is the one who needs to initiate a conversation. When in response to his mother’s question, he confirms that he is wondering about his birth parents, she is careful to make sure he understands that that’s not only OK, but a welcome topic for discussion. She gently draws out his fear that he’ll hurt his “forever parents” if he acknowledges his caring feelings for his birth parents; she gives him permission to love them all. “We have room in our hearts for everyone we care about, Charlie.”

Too often adopted kids feel protective of their adoptive parents, and usually are teenagers or young adults before they begin to understand their own feelings of guilt about wanting to explore their birth connections. Rather than let him sit with that question alone, his mother takes the risk for him and talks it through with him at a time when he really needs to understand. By doing so, she relieves him of any sense of guilt or confusion about loyalty.

We love this book because it explores difficult feelings. This books offers parents an excellent opportunity to talk with their children about the core issues that come with being adopted.

What a child who reads this story will learn is that there are many important people in our lives, and we can hold them all in our hearts at the same time, including BOTH birth and adoptive families together. What a grown-up who reads this story will learn is that parents play an important role in helping our children give voice to their silent worries. We highly recommend A Place in My Heart have a prominent place on the shelf of all adoptive families!