A simple breakfast conversation was the inspiration for "My Beautiful Bow," the new children's book by Seattle mom and playwright Lauren Goldman Marshall. She was sitting at the table a couple years ago with her now 9-year-old biological daughter Hannah and her 5-year-old adopted daughter Abby when Hannah unknowingly opened a door about Abby's birth mother.
"In the book they're talking about hiccupping, and the mom says to the biological daughter, 'oh, you used to hiccup a lot when you were in my belly,' " Marshall recently told a wallyhood.org writer. "And then Abby says, 'Mommy, when I was in your belly did I hiccup a lot too?' "
"And you know, it wasn't like the adoption was a surprise, there was never a moment of revelation, we talked about it as a matter of fact from day one. But I think there is a moment of understanding for a child and that, for her, was the moment of understanding, or at least beginning to understand, when I explained that she wasn't in my belly and there was this person called her birth mother."
From that spark, Marshall created a picture book that tells the story of how Abby came to be part of the Marshall family when she was adopted from China at 11 months of age. The book is aimed at kids aged 4 to 6 and was also an opportunity for Hannah, who has Aspberger's Syndrome, to showcase her illustration talents.
Marshall, who has written several plays, including the long-running "Crepe de Paris" revue, uses a red ribbon as the metaphor that ties an adopted child to both her birth mother and adoptive mother. ‘Your birth mother carried you in her belly, I carried you on my hip,' she writes in "My Beautiful Bow." She hopes the book will fill a gap in children's books about adoption: very few of them highlight the role of the birth mother.
"This book is perfect and, honestly, the only thing I've seen on this topic for young kids," wrote Nancy Cohen, Ph.D., adoptive mother and child psychologist, in a recent book review.
