RED BUTTERFLY

Set against the backdrop of China’s one-child policy, this emotional debut novel-in-verse reveals how one girl refuses to be left behind.

Eleven-year-old Kara lives a sheltered life in Tianjin with Mama, an elderly, American, non-Chinese woman. Mama rarely goes out and refuses to send Kara to school like other Chinese kids. With money tight and a “daddy” who lives in Montana, Kara begins to question why they can’t go live with him. When Kara’s neighbor Zhang Laoshi tells her about being abandoned as a baby, Kara suspects that her hand, “with two short nubs / instead of fingers,” is at the root of her woes. “This is why my birth mother / didn’t keep me, / why she decided to try again / for someone better.” Piece by piece, she discovers a shocking secret about why they must hide. Soon, an accident during a visit from Jody, Mama’s older daughter, sets into motion a roller-coaster adoption process. Kara must make unthinkable choices and painstakingly claim with whom she belongs. Sonnichsen draws upon firsthand experiences in volunteering to improve China’s orphanages and adopting her own Chinese daughter. With spare, fluid language, she creates the endearing, authentic, nuanced emotions of a girl stuck between two worlds and brings to light a foundling’s hope and determination.

An adoption story that’s rich in family complexities and that readers won’t abandon.