The Coffee Can Kid

by Jan M. Czech

Book Overview

Six-year-old Annie asks the father who adopted her to once more tell the story of how she came to America from Korea. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0878688218
• ISBN13: 9780878688210
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Child & Family Press
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 7.2" x 9.9"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Teachable Moment

I first came across this book while looking for a great springboard to teaching the importance of "time capsules" in my classroom. A colleague recommened it. The Coffee Can Kid is a great coupled reading for the English Language Arts classroom as it shows how important memories can be for explaining both the past and the future. I would highly recommend using this book as a classroom resource in teaching students about the importance of things like adoption, heritage, and personal history. My students also each make their own coffee can in September and get to open it at the end of their middle school career. They are always astounded at what they learn about themselves and how this compares with what The Coffee Can Kid learned.

My daughter wants to read this book almost every night!

My three year old, adopted from China, enjoys this book and wants to read it as her bedtime story quite often. There are several reasons why I especially enjoy this book: it shows the closeness of the father-daughter relationship and it gives some background information about rural poverty, explaining why the Korean birthmother made the difficult choice to give up her daughter. Off-hand, I cannot think of another picture book for small children that conveys this difficult kind of info. in a way that a small child might understand it. I think that it's important to have a variety of adoption narratives available for your children to help them understand the wide range of adoption experiences. (So far, the only adoption narrative that I haven't found acceptable is the film version of _Stuart Little_, but that's another story.) My older daughter likes another book by Ms. Czech called _An American Face_. She took it to kindergarden for MLK Day this year to share with the other students. I would recommend both books to adoptive parents as ways to talk about racial difference and the reasons why their birth parents might have relinquished them.

In response to C. Communications

How else would you convey the information that your child was adopted? The story, by the way, is based on a real person, even though most of it is fiction, the story line has enough information that is highly accurate to the facts and situation of Annie's adoption. The majority of international adoptions do not have any record of the geneology of the child. But at the same rate, there are a few children who are lucky enough to have some sort of memory, through a picture or a letter. As for storing these items in a coffee can. The idea of it is like storing stuff in a box, a hope chest, etc. The items are keepsakes and are meant to be accessible by Annie, in the closet, so that she can see her information, and know her identity whenever she feels it is necessary. The coffee can is explained in the book. The author makes sure to have the father explain that the woman from the adoption agency said that it would keep those things safe for Annie - especially the rice paper letter - so they won't fade. Another book to read, which also illustrates the EVIDENCE that pictures or letters are left behind is A SINGLE SQUARE PICTURE by Katy Robinson. She is adopted at the age of 12 and is sent to America with a picture of her mother and grandmother and herself before she leaves. So obviously there are opportunities for adopted children to have some semblence of their biological information.