Book Review: Ten Days and Nine Nights by Yumi Heo

Adoption books are hard to get right. That's what I think. Too many are overly sentimental, trying too hard to tread the thin line between expressing the adoptive parents' love and explaining the whats and whys of adoption. But in Ten Days and Nine Nights, Yumi Heo gets it right. By keeping the text ultra-simple, by showing how small acts have big meanings, and by allowing the illustrations to tell much of the story, Heo conveys how every member of the family is looking forward to welcoming a new baby, and how joyous the occasion is.

The premise of the story is brilliant: a little girl counts down the days from when her mother departs on an airplane to when she comes back home with a new member of the family from Korea. Each page is has only one sentence, depicting a single act of preparing for the baby's arrival, and a calendar with X's marking the days. "I have ten days and nine nights," it begins, and counts down from there. The little girl does things to prepare like washing her old teddy bear and making a drawing of her kitty, that then goes up on the nursery wall. One page reads, "I practice," as she holds a doll in her arms. Another reads, "I tell Molly," and she and her friend stand by the crib. Without any words, you know what the girls are talking about and thinking.

Interspersed throughout the countdown are wordless spreads showing her mother's journey: on the airplane, signing papers at the adoption agency, meeting the new baby at the orphanage. The pacing is surprisingly cinematic and full of momentum. As the number of days decreases, we feel an excitement. Finally, "Daddy puts the CLOSED sign on his dry cleaning store. I have only one day!" And the whole family greets Mother and new baby at the airport.

Yumi Heo has always been so good at conveying a child's view of the world through simple text and wonderfully emotive illustrations. In Ten Days and Nine Nights, she successfully depicts an overseas adoption with just the right combination of information and joy.

Ten Days and Nine Nights
by Yumi Heo