ABSTRACT
Adopted characters used to be—particularly in the fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—orphans who by the end of a story were adopted (think of Dickens’ characters, Anne of Green Gables, or Orphan Annie); today, though, we find a growing number of books in which the adoption is not just a happy ending, but rather the story itself. Children’s books about adoption are books for adoptees that are written, recommended, and bought with the aim of providing adopted children with mirror-narratives to be used as building blocks in the construction of their identities. The growing frequency of international adoption and the new approaches to their socialization—today, adoption is acknowledged and placed at the center of a life narrative rather than glossed over—are keys to understanding the emergence and importance of this topic in children’s literature. This new approach shall also be framed within a broader social and cultural context in which personal stories and biographies are emphasized; children who do not resemble their parents are often asked to explain this difference, and these books present stories in which to rework their own narrative explanations.
