Book review: ‘The Love Tree’

“The Love Tree: A story to help children understand open adoption”
By Katie Biron

Review by Leah Lusk, OA&FS content specialist

I admit I was a little skeptical going into this book, only because the word “love” is often used in conjunction with adoption in ways that oversimplify and gloss over the grief, loss, and other more difficult and complicated aspects of adoption.

And I’ll also admit that I was pleasantly surprised by Katie Biron’s book, which introduces the concept of a “Love Tree” as an alternative to the family tree assignments that often frustrate and discourage young adoptees, as well as anyone whose family does not fit neatly into the historically “traditional” family tree. In the book, Little Mouse comes home with a family tree assignment and struggles to fit everyone on the template provided by the teacher. Mama Fox suggests that Little Mouse take a different approach, and Little Mouse fills his Love Tree with all the people who love him.

What was most refreshing about Biron’s book is that the biological family in the book, who in this case include Little Mouse’s mouse relatives, are not an afterthought or an addition to the tree. They are instead talked about as one of Little Mouse’s two families – and it’s a given that they would be included among the family members listed on a family tree assignment.

This is the way it should be, of course. Every adopted individual will always have both a biological and an adoptive family, whether they are in relationship with them or not. But it’s still not that common for an adoptive parent like Biron to take this as their default stance.

From talking to Biron and reading some of her other writing, I get the sense that she probably had some of the same fears and insecurities as other adoptive parents going into adoptive parenting. But what Biron has embraced and shared with others through this book is an acknowledgment that it is not about her. Adoptive parenting – like all parenting – should be about the child. And what adopted children need from their parents is to be loved for all parts of who they are, and to have all their family and loved ones included in their story and their lives.

Biron not only talks the talk about openness in her book, but she is also walking the walk in her own family. You can learn more about Biron on her website, where you can also get a copy of her book.

I’ll be sharing a Q&A with Biron in a future blog post, and she’ll also be giving away several copies of her book to readers then – so stay tuned for that!