by Ari Dellovo

Each November I try to find a way to honor National Adoption Awareness Month here at the library. In last year’s blog post, I discussed the importance of moving past stereotypes and assumptions and highlighted some fantastic adoptee authors who have written books for a variety of age groups throughout a variety of genres. 

This year, I’d like to share an excerpt from my personal Substack, in which I reflect on the surprising thread that turned up in four of my summer reads. 

“July was a satisfying month for me in terms of starting and finishing good books. I listened to the audiobook versions of My Friends by Fredrik Backman and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans; I read The Vacationers by Emma Straub and The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff.

Without knowing it beforehand, I had somehow chosen four books that all included adoption or foster care. With each new story, I found myself meeting characters who had been relinquished as children, had placed a child for adoption, were navigating foster care, or were considering adoption themselves.

This coincidence got me thinking about the intersection of representation, authenticity, and sensitivity when writing adoption into fiction.

I’m a huge believer that representation matters. Everyone deserves to see themselves reflected in books, movies, television, and even toys. We often talk about representation in terms of race, religion, gender, or disability, but adoption belongs in that conversation, too. Adoptees deserve to encounter characters whose stories feel honest, nuanced, and fully human, not simply defined by the fact that they were adopted.

But reading these four novels raised a different question for me. Representation matters…but who gets to decide whether that representation feels authentic?

As an adoptive parent, I found myself reading these storylines through a lens I simply didn’t have years ago. Before becoming an adoptive parent, I suspect I wouldn’t have noticed the same things I notice now: the language authors choose, whose perspective is centered, what’s left unsaid, and whether adoption exists as a fully realized part of a character’s identity or merely as a convenient plot device.

The portrayal of Lillian in The Bright Years, a young woman who relinquishes her first son while in college, felt authentic to me. So did Louisa, the unforgettable 18-year-old in My Friends who is aging out of the foster care system. And Sybil Van Antwerp, the captivating 76-year-old adoptee at the center of The Correspondent, also rang true. But even as I caught myself thinking that, another question surfaced almost immediately: How would I know?

I’m not an adoptee.

I’m not a birth mother.

I bring one perspective to these stories, but not every perspective.

Curious, I looked up the authors afterward. None appeared to publicly identify as adoptees or first parents themselves. That doesn’t automatically make their portrayals less authentic. Writers have always imagined lives beyond their own experiences, and I wouldn’t want to suggest they shouldn’t. But it did leave me wondering what responsibility authors have when writing about communities they don’t belong to.

Did they consult adoptees? Birth parents? Adoptive families? Sensitivity readers? Did they intentionally seek out voices that could challenge their assumptions? Or did they simply rely on what they believed those experiences might be like?

I don’t expect every author to share every identity they write about. Literature grows when writers imagine lives beyond their own. But I do hope they’re curious enough to recognize what they don’t know and humble enough to learn from the people who do.

Reading these four books back-to-back reminded me that representation isn’t simply about inclusion. It’s about responsibility.

As an adoptive parent, I’m still learning. I’m still discovering whose voices I need to listen to, whose experiences I can’t assume, and how my own perspective continues to evolve. Maybe that’s one of the unexpected gifts these four books gave me. They didn’t leave me with definitive answers about adoption in fiction. They left me asking better questions.

And as a reader, I think that’s a pretty good place to end up.”