Lucky Baby by Meredith Efken is a brutally honest telling of the emotions that some families deal with when adopting. The author adopted a child herself but this not her story is sort of the worst case scenario. Meg Lindsey had a cold and controlling mother so she never saw herself as a mother. Her husband also had parental problems. His father was aloof and cold and his mother left him when he was a child and he never saw her again. What is unusual to me is the use of magical realism. That is magical events that occur in an otherwise realistic story. It does seem to fit into the story very well.

I am not sure when Meg decided that she wanted to adopt but the idea took over her life and yet she still had doubts that she could be a good mother.
In Shanghai, two little girls, one soon to be blind and the other had a hare lip, were becoming close friends. Wen Ming and Zheng An bonded tightly together because they found themselves being rejected by the others in the Children’s home.

This book through its story teaches many lessons about love, the differences between mother and child love and the difficulties that may arise with adoption. One thing that I really liked is the counseling was a part of the healing process and the characters, all of them, mother, father and children all learned from life. Religion itself is not a focus of this book, but rather a focus on being open, honest and forgiving.

I highly recommend this unusual and spell bounding book. ( )