Borya and the Burps, by Joan McNamara and illustrated by Dawn Majewski, is one of three books currently on the market about adoption from Russia. Well, technically, this book is about adoption from Eastern Europe, but that includes Russia so I include it in the three. The other two are my book, When I Met You: A Story of Russian Adoption, and Nikolai the only Bear, by Barbara Joose. I wrote about Nikolai yesterday. Today is all about Borya.

I like Borya and the Burps. I think it is a wonderful, respectful story that gets to the heart of a child who are adopted might feel when he or she is taken from his/her home: the detsky dom. I like how it acknowledges that it's scary to be ripped from the orphanage, even if the orphanage wasn't that great of a place. How do they know that, anyway?

Borya actually lives in a pretty nice orphanage. He sleeps in a room with six other kids (unlike the 17 in my son's gruppa) and the mamatchkas (caretakers) feed them milk at predictable times every day and pat them on the back when they are done. Borya is especially good at the burping that they encourage after the milk is drunk. He is quite proud of his talent.

But then one day a Mama-and-a-Papa come and take one of the children from Borya's gruppa away. In most adoption books Borya would be longing for a Mama-and-a-Papa of his own but in this book it's quite the contrary: Borya is alarmed! What's a Mama-and-a-Papa, anyway? Where did Borya's little friend go? Change is not good.

So, wouldn't you know it, a little while later a Mama-and-a-Papa come to get Borya. He's very wary of them. They don't look like the mamatchkas and one of them is a man. Men are doctors and poke you with needles. Borya is not very happy about this.

The Mama-and-Papa take Borya to see a judge. She is so serious! Borya continues to be very unhappy...until the Papa burps! The judge laughs and Borya is thrilled. He has something in common with this man. Maybe the Papa will not be so bad.

Yay! Happy ending - but not overwhelmingly so. This is a super book for our adopted kids. My 3-year old was a little alarmed with what happened to Borya but my 6-year-old loved it. Much burping the first night we read it.