Book review: ‘A Heart That Holds It All’

“A Heart That Holds It All: A Story of Adoption”
By Lauren Haas
Review by Leah Lusk, OA&FS content specialist

In the preface to her debut children’s book, adoptee and elementary school counselor Lauren Haas writes that she penned the book for other adoptees and dedicates it to her younger self, saying it was the story she needed.

The book isn’t exactly a story, but rather a series of rhyming affirmations with one repeated underlying message for adoptees: Your feelings about adoption – all of them – are okay.

In writing the book, Lauren explains in her preface that she was aiming to fill a gap in children’s literature about adoption; the books she found contained narratives such as “We chose you” or “God brought you to us” that didn’t speak to the complexities that exist in adoption.

This book offers an acknowledgment of the mixed emotions that an adoptee might have about adoption while assuring the child that they are loved. It also affirms that it’s natural and normal to hold two seemingly conflicting emotions simultaneously – a common human experience with which most adoptees are even more familiar.

It encourages young adoptees to talk with someone they love when they have big feelings or questions and gives ideas for self-soothing such as hugging a teddy bear or a pet.

The book also normalizes the wonderings an adoptee might have about their biological roots: What did their biological parents look like? Do their traits or behaviors match those of their birth parents? That said, Lauren doesn’t use the words birth parents or biological parents anywhere in the book. I’m not yet sure if that was intentional, but I’ve asked Lauren, and we’ll be sharing a Q&A with Lauren in a future blog post in which she’ll share her motivations for the book and some details about her process.

Ideally, parents are making space for their adoptees to have big feelings of all varieties from an early age, and this book will reinforce the message that it’s okay for adoptees to talk about these things with their parents. It may be particularly helpful in situations in which adoptive families don’t have much ongoing contact with biological families and can’t ask questions or have conversations directly.

With a well-intentioned theme, this book is a welcome addition to the existing library of children’s books addressing adoption. The writing itself doesn’t feel quite as polished and fine-tuned as many children’s books, with rhymes that feel forced at times (rhyming is hard; try it!). The book also feels quite repetitive – though repetition may be just the right thing for its young audience to take in this important message. Overall, the book is worth picking up – reading it with a young adoptee in your life just might spark a meaningful conversation.

Stay tuned for a Q&A with Lauren on the blog in a couple of weeks!

You can follow her on Instagram @thecognitivecounselor.

The book is available for purchase via Amazon or Barnes and Noble.