The Story I'll Tell

In this tender story of international adoption, a mother weaves a magical web of tales to explain how her child came to be part of the family.

A young child asks his mother to tell the story of where he came from. "I might tell how you came from a land far away in a hot air balloon. The basket slowly drifted down like a feather into our yard. I dropped the firewood I was carrying and ran to you. 'You're home now,' I said." Or maybe it was a lark--and not a stork--that brought the child to the mother. Or perhaps he was rescued from a dragon! Each lyrical and fantastic tale contains a small kernel of truth that pieces together the baby's journey from China into his new mother's arms.

Beautifully illustrated by Jessica Lanan, The Story I'll Tell is a gentle and moving story of international adoption and parental love that is sure to touch the hearts of readers everywhere, no matter how they came to be a family.

Nancy Tupper Ling is the winner of the Writer's Digest Grand Prize and the Pat Parnell Poetry Award, and is the founder of Fine Line Poets. She was inspired to write The Story I'll Tell from the multicultural background of her own family and the experiences of friends who have adopted children from all over the world. Ling resides in Walpole, Massachusetts, with her family. You can visit her online at nancytupperling.com.

Jessica Lanan is an award-winning author and artist from Longmont, Colorado. She's the illustrator of many children's books including Lee & Low Books's The Story I'll Tell which received two starred reviews. Jessica's first book as an author-illustrator, The Fisherman and the Whale, was awarded the 2020 Bull-Bransom Award for Wildife Art. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, where she enjoys thunderstorms, crunching autumn leaves beneath her feet, and leaving footprints in freshly fallen snow. Visit her online at jessicalanan.com.