GOD FOUND US YOU

Bergren and Bryant continue their popular God Gave Us series with this entry that addresses adoption from a religious perspective. The characters are a mother fox with traditional rust coloring and her adopted son, a young white fox. The gentle text tells of the adult fox’s longing to become a mother, her long period of waiting and her prayers and faith in God, with the birth mother and her place in the story also gracefully acknowledged. Though the text is lyrical and smooth, the unusual syntax of the repeated refrain “God found us you” interferes with the flow of the story at first reading, though this usage is a focal point of the series. The use of “us” in that phrase is deliberately left ambiguous, as no father fox is shown, making this story suitable for single adoptive mothers or for adoptive families with same-sex parents. Bryant’s appealing watercolor illustrations show the tender love between mother and child against soft-focus backgrounds of a cozy forest and with borders of twining vines. (Religion/picture book. 2-5)