*Spoiler Alert*
If you don't want to know how the story ends, please skip this post and go down to the next, where there is a nice mild review.
You know how some books stick with you, good or bad? Some books I read, put away and don't really think much about. Others seem to stay with me and Little Ellie Claus, by James Manos Jr. has. Not in a good way. I keep thinking, and thinking, and thinking about this story. I thought about writing a letter to the author but I can't find an e-mail address.
Here's my problem. . . I'm adopted. I was adopted at birth and my parents are amazing. They have done nothing but love and support me my entire life. If, at age eleven, my birth parents had come back into my life, there is absolutely no way my parents would have just waved goodbye to me. There is no way I would have let them.
In Little Ellie Claus, Ellie finds out that she is adopted (not formally or legally, but essentially she was adopted). She's only eleven years old but she immediately takes off for New York to find her birth mother. There was nothing pointing to a strained or difficult relationship between Ellie and her parents. She was raised by Santa and Mrs. Claus! What could be bad? When Ellie finds her birth mother, she bonds with her immediately and after some drama, she says goodbye to the parents who raised her so she could stay with the mother who was forced to give her up many years earlier.
I can't imagine that the author really understands how adoption works, not the legal aspect, but the emotional bond. Ellie was an infant when Santa took her in. She had no memory of her birth mother, so why the instant bond? I find it all very disturbing and frankly the ending ruined the book for me. That's all I have to say.
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