I’m trying to track down a book. It’s a children’s fiction book probably published before the 1980s about a couple who adopts children from different countries. They also have a biological son. One of the children they adopt is from Korea, and there’s a scene that describes their picking him up from the airport. The child only speaks Korean. I read this book as a child in the 80s, but I think it was published before then.
This is could be The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss published in 1954. This is a true story of a minister and his wife who adopted 12 children. They weren’t able to have any biological children but their first adopted son was Caucasian. It was when they had difficulty adopting a second child that they began adopting children of other races. They didn’t adopt a child who spoke another language that I recall or picked a child up from the airport so everything doesn’t match and it also would have been almost 30 years old in the ’80s.
Hi, Donna! Thanks so much for your suggestion. I purchased the Kindle version of The Family Nobody Wanted after reading your post. Although there are many similarities, sadly, this isn’t the book. But just as a note, the book I’m inquiring after could have very well been published well before the ’80s. I don’t remember the publishing date, only that it was published probably a few years before I had read it. Anyway, thank you so much for helping!
Another true story from the 1950s about the adoption of a large family of Korean children is Bertha Holt’s ‘Seed from the East’ – is this a possibility? There is also Pearl Buck’s ‘Welcome Child’ which is a children’s story about an American family’s adoption of a Korean child.
Hi, Ann! Thank you for your response. I don’t think it’s Bertha Holt’s Seed from the East because the parents in the book I’m thinking about adopted children from different countries, not just Korea. But I will check out Welcome Child. Thanks again!
Did some of the children have handicaps? If so it could be 19 STEPS UP THE MOUNTAIN about the DeBolt family. They adopted several Korean and Vietnamese children, some of which were handicapped.
I don’t have a title, but it sounds like the plot of a book by Jamie Gilson. I would have read it in the mid 80s, so the timing would match.
Hey LindaY and Julie, thanks so much! LindaY, I was so excited by your post at first because the title sounded so familiar to me. But the family in the book I remember only adopted one child from Korea. Julie, I looked up Jamie Gilson, but I don’t see any books that fit the description. But her books sound really cute. Anyway, thanks!
Not a fiction book either, but Dearest Debbie, Dale Evans Rogers’ 1965 memoir about the daughter she and Roy Rogers lost in a bus accident, has a scene in which they pick Debbie up at the airport but can’t talk with her because she speaks only Korean. Rogers describes how Debbie adapted to their large family of adopted and biological children and soon spoke perfect English.
Did you know that Helen Doss wrote a different version of her family’s story? It was for kids and it was called “a Brother the Size of Me” it takes place just after Timmy’s adoption and tells the story from a different perspective. I have a copy of it in a box somehere. When I have a chance I’ll take some pictures of the illustrations. Maybe the story you remember is about this family- just a different book about them.