Sharon Bracken
Child Heroes Publishing (2009)
ISBN 9780974656830
Reviewed by Cayden Aures (age 5) and Mom for Reader Views (8/09)
“Elle, the Little Lost Wombat” is a story about international adoption. The book is written from the perspective of Elle, a wombat, whose parents go for a walk and never return. She is brought to an orphanage where she is “hungry and cold” most of the time. As she grows older she is scared that no one will ever want to adopt her. One day though a couple from another country come and they choose her to adopt. Initially the language barrier prevents them from understanding each other but it all works out in the end.
Cayden: “Why did her mom and dad not come home? Why did they leave her? Why did she have to go to that place where she was hungry? I’m glad that someone brought her home at the end though even if she had to go far away from where she used to live. But why couldn’t they understand each other?”
Parent’s comments:
As you can see from my son’s comments above, this book provoked a lot of discussion about the subject matter. “Elle, the Little Lost Wombat” by Sharon Bracken was really a sad story. I’m not sure that I liked the beginning part about the parents going out for a walk and not coming back as this definitely would not be a good book to read to children already struggling with separation anxiety. All in all though, my son did learn what international adoption was and I think that the book is an important one even though there were parts of it that were a little depressing.
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