I Don't Have Your Eyes

I Don't Have Your Eyes
by Carrie Kitze

Family connections are vitally important to children as they begin to find their place in the world. For transracial and transcultural adoptees, domestic adoptees, and for children in foster care or kinship placements, celebrating the differences within their families as well as the similarities that connect them, is the foundation for belonging. As parents or caregivers, we can strengthen our children’s tie to family and embrace the differences that make them unique. Each child will have their own story and their own special place to belong.

This beautifully illustrated and uplifting book, for the 2-5 set, will help to create the intimate parent/caregiver and child bond that is so important. While others may notice the physical differences between us on the outside, inside we are the same.

Gail Steinberg from PACT an Adoption Alliance has created a guide for families touched by transracial and transcultural adoption. Click here to read or print.

REVIEWS:
	Beth O’Malley adoptee, and new adoptive Mom “My father, grandmother, and sister are all talented artists. Growing up, I knew that this was clearly a 'family trait' which I would never have. It took many years before I realized which 'traits' that my adoptive family had given me. For example, I have my father's dry sense of humor. How wonderful that your child can read I Don't Have Your Eyes and be gently taught about the strength of family bonds. Be prepared to read this book to your toddler over and over and over, it begs to be repeated. The captivating illustrations reflect the beauty of diverse families. Another wonderful book from the author of We See the Moon.”
	Sheena Macrae This new book from EMK is a book for all young adopted children, but is especially affirmative for those adopted transracially. It explores how difference may quite literally be only skin-deep. It looks at how characteristics and behaviours can be shared and developed within a family. It therefore helps the child understand that "family glue" can be stronger that plain physical resemblances. Carrie Kitze has used the powerful tool of word-play to achieve for the child cohesion between genetic difference and family-developed same-ness. And even more importantly, each "compare and contrast" is narrated through a different "child-actor". Thus the child-reader is immediately invited into the book by a "friend", a child-actor s/he can relate to as if to a classmate. There is a good collection of different ways that children may feel lonely through looking different, alongside the "pair", the enablement for the child to claim/be claimed by family glue. I don't have your eyes, but I have your way of looking at things and I don't have your toes; but I have your way of dancing through life are just two of the beautifully constructed double-paged vignettes the book offers direct to the child-reader. Add to the words the simple, open-faced illustrations of each double-entendre and there is no fear the child will not understand the contrasts s/he is invited to think over. You need to see the book to truly know what the text/graphics combo makes. It's exponential! The book presents initially as simple, and for that reason could be used for children of around age three to begin to open the dialogue of difference. However, Carrie's text is complex enough for children up to eight (and even beyond) to use it think through how similarities in families are built. Younger children will lose much of the play on words, will only see the surface level. Older children can use the book as a springboard for their own feelings about difference. For this reason, I think that although its sounds paradoxical, older kids need some help with it in working out the deeper meaning, the subtexts. In this way they can learn how to construct a solid view of who they are in their family- as well as how they look to outsiders to it. EMK as ever offers a most valuable downloadable resource guide from Beth Hall and Gail Steinberg to accompany this book. These well known authors on the topic of transracial adoption write to emphasise how children both need pride in how they look (racial/personal affirmation) AND pride in knowing they are claimed by their adoptive families. Difference and sameness need both to be valued. The guide offers some hard-hitting advice on how parents need to achieve this. There are some who might see the book as sweetening the topic of difference. A first run through and the affirmations of the text might look like gloss. But this is a children's book, and children need simple affirmation. Adult readers have to look at the ties, the heart-strings that children need in order to be confirmed, as well as affirmed, in a family. And then we need remember the subtexts of each vignette, how much deeper introspection is made possible for children ready to seek. This book works. For me, and for my three year old and for my seven-year old. A reworking for some special kids of the card games of Happy Families and Snap! And about time too...