Yafi's Family: an Ethiopian boy's journey of love, loss and adoption - Hardcover

Linda Pettitt; Foreword By Melissa Fay Greene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0979748143 ISBN 13: 9780979748141

Publisher: Amharic Kids, 2010

Synopsis

A tender story of a six-year-old Ethiopian boy's adoption and family history is a celebration of the all-encompassing love for each child that original families and adoptive parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters share.

Yafi (Yafee), his parents, and two sisters, eight-year-old Kari and ten-year-old Anna, remember his early life and his adoption experience by telling stories, revisiting memories, and looking at photographs. Yafi's Family is the story of love, loss, and a boy's discovery of how wide and how deep the bonds of family can be.

About this title

About the Author:

After adopting her son from Ethiopia, Linda Pettitt was inspired to write a story about adoption and family, as a gift for her son. Yafi's Family is the story that evolved from this dream and it is now a gift not only to her son, but for all children to share with their families. Linda lives with her husband and three children in Perth, Western Australia. This is her first book.

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 2—In this beautiful, moving book, an Ethiopian boy is adopted and journeys to his new family in Australia. Gilchrist's vibrant full-page illustrations expertly portray the child's strong emotions toward both his birth and adoptive families, as described in the text. Yafi yearns for contact with his aunts, uncles, and especially Grandma Elsa, who cared for him until he was adopted. His adoptive sisters and parents reinforce his happy memories and empathize with his longing for his Ethiopian relatives and friends. His father tells him, "For a long time, your grandma and the neighbors in the village watched over you...but [she] was growing old. Sometimes she didn't have enough food to feed you or medicine to give you when you were sick." Books such as Linda Walvoord Girard's We Adopted you, Benjamin Koo (Albert Whitman, 1989) cover similar territory, but this title is specific to Ethiopia and will particularly appeal to African adoptees seeking a book about children who resemble them. The illustrations offer realistic depictions of the people and are infused with charming warmth. This is an excellent addition to any collection, but especially libraries seeking books about international and transracial adoptions.—Deborah Vose, East Middle School and South Middle School, Braintree, MA
(c) Copyright 2011.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: Amharic Kids
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0979748143
• ISBN 13: 9780979748141
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Editor: Sharon Darrow
• Illustrator: Jan Spivey Gilchrist