Every Year on Your Birthday by Rose Lewis and illustrated by Jane Dyer

Every Year on Your Birthday by Rose Lewis and illustrated by Jane Dyer is a book that adopted children (especially from China) could really relate to. The story is narrated by the child's adopted mother. She explains how she felt and what she and her daughter did for each one of her daughter's birthdays. In addition to this, she briefly mentions how her daughters life was before she was adopted. She also mentions the biological parents as well, which I thought was nice.

Some aspects of this book I really liked revolved around the way the author incorporated aspects of China in addition to the United States. The author mentioned celebrating the Chinese New Year, and in the back there was the Chinese character for family. However, she portrayed her daughter as an American since she was now a United States citizen. With the help of the illustrator, there was one specific page where the little girl was dressed in blue and white holding a mini-flag and there was a cake decorated as an American flag. This brings me to another great feature of the book: the illustrations. They looked as though they were photographs taken that captured little moments. The facial expressions were very realistic, and I think the illustrator did a great job of portraying the emotions.

If I could change any part of this book, it would be the adding more substance to the story. There seems like the author left a lot out that could have been included. I wish she would have included more about the relationship between the woman and her daughter. Also, it would have been nice to have the perspective of the daughter as well as the mother. All in all, I would recommend this book. However, I think there may be other books that carry more meaning and have a little easier for readers to relate to.