Wonderful You: An Adoption Story

McLaughlin’s story opens with the “Wonderful You” of the title still inside her birth mother, a “lady in blue” who searches the world for the perfect parents. Certain that she has found a man and woman who will provide “a home for my girl that is loving and kind,” a dreamy handoff takes place in the clouds, the lady disappears on a large white bird, and the delighted couple imagines their future as parents of a daughter. McLaughlin’s (the Mitzi Tulane, Preschool Detective series) lilting rhymes veer into the overly sentimental (“We were made for each other, as families are.../ each one, in its way, a story unfolding/ of laughter and teardrops and arms made for holding”) but So (Follow the Moon Home) delivers ethereal visions of family life. Parents and daughter literally float through a life of snowy scenes, swing sets, and seashores. So’s characters may defy the laws of gravity, but their radiant, almost musical joy speaks to the rewards of magical thinking, and the poignancy of emotional truths. Ages 3–7. [em]Author’s agent: Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary Management. Illustrator’s agent: Sally Heflin, Heflinreps. (Apr.) [/em]