Yeong & Yeong Book Company ©2001.
ISBN 0-9638472-6-0
Revew by: James L. Weaver, FCC webmaster.
This review is a little more personal as I met the author in the spring of 2001. Ying Ying Fry, who is about as typical an eight year old as you can find, has written a book about her trip to China to spend an extended visit to the orphanage where she spent the first months of her life. The text has clearly benefited from the adult writing talents of her mother, Amy Klatzkin but the voice is clearly that of Ying Ying. Her point of view, thoughts and feelings are faithfully presented and preserved throughout the book. Ying Ying has a significant advantage in that she can speak Mandarin well enough to get along and to interact directly with the children and adults she meets.
In addition to the text, there are dozens of photographs of the Changsha Social Welfare Institute, and the city of Changsha, capital of Hunan province. The book gives an honest viewpoint of the life of the children in this specific orphanage and by extension to the many others in China. Ying Ying discusses her perspective on the issues of birth parents, how she feels about being adopted and her interactions with the children growing up in the Changsha SWI. There is also a section on her visit with a Chinese family that they had become acquainted with on previous trips to China, and a visit to a school.
The book is a valuable addtion to the library of any China family for several reasons. First it will give both children and parents a picture of what life in one SWI in China is like. This will help many children fill in a picture of what their life may have been like in China before they were adopted. Second, it will provide a natural and unforced stimulus for discussion of a variety of topics that many parents have difficulty bringing up for discussion. These might include how the child feels about being adopted, birthparents, orphanage life and others. Next, it provides the parents with a view of how their children might feel about many of the adoption-related issues we all wrestle with. It is the first of many books that will be written by the children themselves telling their stories. Finally it is a well written and very entertaining book.
I would suggest that this book should be found under many Christmas trees this year and for years to come. It can be ordered through the FCC NY Store site at: https://www.fccny.org/store/, books will be shipped starting in early November 2001. Happy reading.
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