Every Year on Your Birthday

by Rose Lewis; illustrated by Jane DyerLittle, Brown & Company; $16.99; ages 4-8

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When my five-year-old saw the Chinese girl on the cover of this new book, she was intrigued.

“A girl like me!” Grace said.

In the adoption classic, I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, we met a little girl adopted from China. In Every Year on Your Birthday, we see how that girl and her single mom have celebrated birthdays one through five. Grace’s attention wavered when the mom was the focus, but was riveted when the story shifted back to the child. She loved the spread featuring the six girls who shared a room in the orphanage—one of the mother’s memories—and began naming the babies after her Chinese friends. I was pleased to find the same kind of warm illustrations that characterize this book’s predecessor.

Reviewed by Lee McClain, Ph.D., a professor of creative writing at Seton Hill University and an adoptive mom who lives in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

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