Eyes that Weave the World's Wonders by Joanna Ho, with Liz Kleinrock
Thousands of children are adopted in the United States each year, and yet stories featuring adoption are still rare. Joanna Ho, author of the award winning Eyes that Kiss in the Corners joined educator and transracial adoptee Liz Kleinrock to pen a story that honors the unique experiences and joys of growing up adopted. We asked Liz to share a little about her own childhood and experiences and what led her to write this book.
December 15th.
Today is the anniversary of my arrival. Most kids and their families have photos of the day they were born, their cute smushy infant face wrapped in a blanket cradled the arms of their parents from the delivery bed. I don’t have any of those photos. The documentation of my life starts at six months old at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC. Just like in the opening pages of Eyes that Weave the World’s Wonders, I grew up as a Korean transracial adoptee in a family where I looked different than everyone else (if you haven’t heard this term before, “transracial adoptee” means that I’m of one race and was adopted into a family of a different race.) What we lacked in matching, we made up for in love.
Multiple things can be true at the same time. I loved (and still love) my family. They love me, have always supported me, and will be traveling to Korea with me for the first time this summer. And being an adoptee has always been hard. There are questions I’ve held onto since childhood, and a sense of loss and grief that have followed me since I can remember. When I searched for books about adoptees as a child and now as an educator, I always came up short. I saw that the limited stories available often fit into a few themes: Stories about adoption that weren’t written by adoptees, stories that were well intentioned but often dehumanized adoptees, and stories about adopting pets (to this day, when I talk about my adoptee identity with children, I can guarantee that some kid is going to compare my experience to their own adopting a dog or cat.) Nothing felt even remotely close to reflecting me, my family, or my journey.
This past week during a family Hanukkah celebration, I showed our book to my little cousins who are 4 and 7 years old. Immediately they started asking the kind of questions I hoped would be brought up for anyone reading this story. “Who is she?” one asked, pointing to the illustration of my birth mother. “Why couldn’t you stay with her?” inquired the other. While answering these questions wasn’t easy, I was happy that the book created an access point for us to talk about our family.
When you’re growing up, figuring out who you are is hard. Then add in not knowing who your biological parents are, having a severed connection to your birth culture and history, never seeing people like you represented in books or movies, few resources to talk about it, and often lacking the language to even ask questions. Being an adoptee can be tough! And putting all of these challenges together is exactly why I’m so grateful to have worked on this book with Joanna Ho and share my family’s story with the world.
About the Author
Liz Kleinrock is an author, antibias antiracist educator, consultant, and facilitator for schools, organizations, and companies across the country. A transracial adoptee, Liz was born in South Korea and grew up in Washington, DC. She is the author of Start Here, Start Now: A Guide to Antibias and Antiracist Work in Your School Community and Come and Join Us! 18 Holidays Celebrated All Year Long, illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat. She resides in Washington, DC, with her partner and two bunnies and advocates for a more equitable world through her work with Teach and Transform. You can learn more about her work at lizkleinrock.com.
About the Book
From New York Times bestselling Joanna Ho, of Eyes that Kiss in the Corners, and award-winning educator Liz Kleinrock, comes a powerful companion picture book about adoption and family. A young girl who is a transracial adoptee learns to love her Asian eyes and finds familial connection and meaning through them, even though they look different from her parents’.
Her family bond is deep and their connection is filled with love. She wonders about her birth mom, and comes to appreciate both her birth culture and her adopted family's culture, for even though they may seem very different, they are both a part of her, and that is what makes her beautiful. She learns to appreciate the differences in her family and celebrate them.