François Thisdale,
Nini
Tundra Books, 2011.

Rating: G

Nini is the first storybook authored by the award-winning illustrator, François Thisdale. It is a story about a Chinese adoption by a Canadian family. It begins with the child in the womb, listening to her mother’s voice. Sadly, the child is given up to an orphanage and her mother’s voice becomes a distant echo. Meanwhile, two people on the other side of the world want to become parents but have not been able to have their own child. They are overjoyed to receive a picture of Nini in the mail and make a long journey to adopt her. Finally, the story ends with the grateful thoughts of all three whose lives have come together with love. Thisdale, who has an adopted daughter himself, writes with a deep authenticity.

"Just like the roots in a garden
weave together to become one plant,
the mother, father, and little girl
are bound to one another.
Their love joins them and reaches
to the other side of the earth.
On certain evenings, they sit, perfectly content, and listen as night birds call out one last time before settling into their nests.
And they thank a distant echo that travels on the night breeze for allowing them to become a family."

This is a beautiful story, with magic, poetry and much symbolism in both the text and illustrations. It is also a challenging book for a young reader and would require some interpretation and discussion by the teacher.

The illustrations are multi-textured images using drawing, painting and digital imagery. Images include beautiful scenes of China, different expressions of the child, a journey across the ocean, a symbolic bridge between two different homes and a family joined in love who have grown roots all around the planet.

Nini would be a good story for practising questioning skills, as children will certainly have questions or ideas to share.
Recommended.

Thematic Links: Adoption; Babies; Families

Lori Austin
Vol. 17, number 1
October 2011

*Rating System:
E - Excellent, enduring, everyone should see it!
G - Good, even great at times, generally useful!
A - Average, all right, has its applications.
P - Problematic, puzzling, poorly presented.