BOOK REVIEW: Birds of a Different Feather

I ordered Birds of a Different Feather as the same time as I ordered the book What Makes a Baby. I was so excited about this book and could not wait to receive it. Here is book synopsis for Birds of a Different Feather:

Hen and Gander are ready to start a family and hatch a beautiful baby, Gosling. Soon, Gosling wants siblings. She searches high and low. In the grass and thistles, she finds a baby duckling. She loves the new baby so much that she wants another bird to make the family complete. She soon finds a baby chicken under an oak tree. Come see how these Birds of a Different Feather make their own unique family.I was very excited to receive this book. My perception was that it would be the ideal book to explain that all families grow differently. I though it would be really great for parents who had multiple children of which had joined their family in a variety of ways - genetic children, adopted children, IVF, embryo adoption, etc. In this way, the book is unique, as most other assisted reproduction books or adoption books focus just on the one child and the one unique or unconventional way the child joined the family.

Birds of a Different Feather is a 28-page paperback book (also available in hardcover). My first impression of the book was that it is really cute. The illustration are colorful and fun - the colors actually get brighter on each page as the family grows. The barn yard theme is appealing for children. And the book is written is a catchy singsong style. I also like the subtle diversity aspect of geese parents, parenting a gosling, duckling, and chick. But that is where my positive comments end.

I really, really want to like this book. The premise is so cute and the author is an embryo adoption mother who did typical embryo adoption before going on to give birth to twins created from donor sperm and donor eggs.

Unforunatlly, I just don’t like it. My biggest issue is with some of the abandonment type language depicting how / why the duckling and chick join the family:

"What was this precious find? It was a newborn duckling whose family left him behind."

and...

"Under the oak tree, something was cracking. It was an abandoned egg that had just started hacking."

In addition to these quotes, the book also makes clear that things are brighter, better, happier the more the family grows. I worry that the idea that the family is happier with more children communicates to older children that they were not enough. The book is particularly inappropriate for a single child family such as ours in that it communicates our life without a sibling for Leland is sad.

In the end, I just can’t get over some of the language used in the book. So the book has gone up high on a shelf where Leland is unable to see it and I am undecided about the future fate of this book.

Does this language bother anyone else? Or can you look past it to the really cute story and overall message?