Product Description

In this first view of China adoption from a child's perspective, eight-year-old Ying Ying Fry returns to her orphanage to remember what it is like and to write a story so that other adopted children will understand where they came from. Kids Like Me in China combines real-life photos with the forthright observations and complex feelings of an adopted child as she meets caregivers and befriends children in the city where her life began. This book will inspire all adopted children to take charge of their own life stories.

Eight-year-old Ying Ying Fry is a Chinese American girl growing up in San Francisco. But her story didn't begin there. Like lots of kids she knows, Ying Ying spent her first months in China--in a birth family she cannot remember and an orphanage in Changsha, Hunan province, where her American parents adopted her when she was a tiny baby.

When Ying Ying goes back to visit Changsha, she can't wait to see her orphanage caregiver--someone who knew her and loved her when she lived in China. Meeting Li Ayi is just the beginning, as Ying Ying discovers points of connection with all the orphanage children--babies, toddlers and school-age kids. Outside the orphanage she visits children at home, at playgrounds and at school, and these friendships too help her see her life story in a new light. A child of two countries, Ying Ying is determined to claim both as her own.

Kids Like Me in China combines real-life photos with the forthright observations and complex feelings of an adopted child as she ponders what her early life might have been like. The first view of China adoption from a child's perspective, Kids Like Me will inspire all adopted children to take charge of their own life stories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #289584 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 44 pages

Review
An inspiration for all adopted children to tell what they think and feel about the early chapters of their lives. -- Jane Brown, MSW, adoption educator

How marvelous that in telling their own stories children can embrace their connections to many layers of people and places. -- Sara Dorow, author of When You Were Born in China

Kids Like Me in China [is] quite simply tremendously important. -- Gail Steinberg, co-author of Inside Transracial Adoption

Ms. Fry writes with such delight and keen observation, you feel like you are visiting the orphanage with her. -- Rose Lewis, author of I Love You Like Crazy Cakes

On the difficult issues..., she combines a thoughtful, informed understanding with a kid's straightforward approach. -- Kay Johnson, professor of Asian studies and politics at Hampshire College

From the Inside Flap
"Ms. Fry writes with such delight and keen observation, you feel like you are visiting the orphanage with her. Every adopted child will love to read this book again and again. It is their story too."
--Rose Lewis, author of I Love You Like Crazy Cakes

"How marvelous that in telling their own stories children can embrace their connections to many layers of people and places. Kids Like Me in China paves the way for parents and children to explore the layers of their own histories and identities. It is a playful, thoughtful and refreshingly accessible story."
--Sara Dorow, author of When You Were Born in China

"Now that our kids are getting older, they need to hear the voices of their peers, not just adults, as they figure out where they came from and why. Ying Ying is the first child adopted from China to tell her own story, and she does it very well indeed. On the difficult issues of abandonment and why one finds so many girls in Chinese orphanages, she combines a thoughtful, informed understanding with a kid's straightforward approach to explain clearly what parents so often struggle to discuss with their kids. This will be a great book for the China adoption community."
--Kay Johnson, professor of Asian studies and politics at Hampshire College and co-author of "Infant Abandonment and Adoption in China"

"We don't have to wait until children are adults to help them tell their own life stories. Kids Like Me in China is an inspiration for all adopted children to begin to tell us what they think and feel about the early chapters of their lives."
--Jane Brown, MSW, adoption educator

"Kids Like Me in China [is] quite simply tremendously important . . ., must reading for everyone eager to understand some of the deepest issues of adoption: connecting, belonging, and identity."
--Gail Steinberg, co-author of Inside Transracial Adoption

About the Author
Ying Ying Fry is in third grade at the Chinese American International School in San Francisco, where she studies all subjects in both English and Mandarin. She is a Junior Girl Scout and likes to play soccer, draw, read and write stories. She wrote this book with help from her mom, Amy Klatzkin, a contributing editor to Adoptive Families magazine and the editor of A Passage to the Heart: Writings from Families with Children from China.

Brian Boyd, the lead photographer, is the author of When You Were Born in Korea and the father of two daughters adopted from Korea. He lives with his wife and children in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ying Ying took a few of the photos, and others are by her dad, Terry M. Fry, a founding board member of San Francisco Bay Area Families with Children from China. All photos were taken in Hunan, all but one in December 2000.

Customer Reviews

An important resource
As an adult Korean adoptee and the author of a memoir about my own adoption experience, I was excited to read "Kids Like Me In China." This book is extremely well written and serves as an important resource for adoptive parents and their children. I only wish a book such as this one would have been available when I was a child growing up in Salt Lake City - often feeling like I was the only Asian and the only adopted person in the whole world. How wonderful that today's children can hear about the adoption experience - told with warmth, curiosity and honesty - from one of their peers, as well as see their faces reflected in the beautiful photographs throughout the book.

A must for your Adoption Library
This book is priceless. It is written by an 8 year old girl, Ying Ying Fry, who is adopted from China. It is her story of going back to her orphanage in ChangSha, China to see and talk to kids in the orphange and learn about their life. My daughter is also adopted from ChangSha so this story held even more meaning. The words are Ying Ying's and they are powerful in her observations. The pictures of the children and of life in general in China also fill in gaps of what her life may have been like. This is a perfect gift for your child from China. We will treasure it for its glimpse it gave us of life in China. Thank you Ying Ying!

Fantastic! I LOVE reading "Kids" with my kid.
I've already read "Kids" with my daughter nearly a dozen times and we'll no doubt read (and talk about it) it again and again and again. It's touching, enlightening, and really fun to see China through Ying Ying's eyes. It's also wonderful that the book is not just her story, but clearly one that could belong to any kid from China. Having read only parents' accounts so far, I'm also really, really pleased to get the perspectives of a child, For me, it's all about the kids, and it's clear that they can be every bit as eloquent in telling their own stories in their own words. This book should dispel all doubts that kids are capable of making sense of their complex stories. "Kids" doesn't gloss over the hard stuff, but has it all just right in just the right amount of detail. I love it for the hard stuff and I love it for the fun stuff. We get the fun stuff through Ying Ying's ability to converse in Mandarin, which simply gives her (and us) access to the ordinary in China: other kids' lives, schools, and homes. My daughter is just drinking this in and I can't get enough of it. Great story, great pictures, great book!