Rain Forest Girl: More Than an Adoption Story Book

A young girl describes her experiences before and after she leaves her mother and grandmother in Brazil to live with the American family who adopts her.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-6-It is rare for an adoption story to focus on the waiting child rather than on the waiting parents. Daiane's adoptive mother has written a book about her daughter's life from the time the girl's ailing mother gave her up at age seven, through a two-year wait living in a convent while paperwork was completed, to her first confusing weeks in the U.S. Daiane's difficult and isolated life in the Brazilian rain forest is only briefly described. However, the author does an excellent job of conveying the strangeness of the adoption process, new English-speaking parents, and the first hotel stay and airplane ride for this nine year old. Readers share her relief when she meets an American girl who speaks Brazilian Portuguese. An epilogue introduces the 16-year-old Daiane, now Diana, who has visited the nuns in Brazil and dreams of returning there to help poor children, but in the meantime "kicks the soccer ball farther than anyone on her team." The black-and-white photos are informative. This title complements Perry Schwartz's Carolyn's Story (Lerner, 1996), a book that depicts an adopted Honduran child's life in the U.S.-Nancy Schimmel, formerly at San Mateo County Library, CA