When I saw and requested this book I thought that it was going to be a story of adoption and what it meant for a white family to adopt a black child in the 60's, but it ended up being more about Michaela’s personal journey living with that adoptive brother, how they were only a month apart and the family always referred to them as "twins", and how his untimely death helped her discover what she was meant to do in her life and how she walked away from music and became a writer and crusader instead.

I wish there had been more stories about Frankie and Michaela growing up, and what that meant to the family dynamic and truly how it affected her relationship with her estranged older brother [she touches on that, but essentially says that it is his story, when in fact it is both of theirs story and I think she was shying away from that], and a deeper look into some of the issues the family may have faced [especially from her mom's POV - she only touches on that and I think that would have been important to this book]; that was what I was expecting. But, reading about how Frankie’s birth mother’s family (mainly his biological brothers) embraced Michaela and her partner Rony, all the issues and troubles they had in Uganda, all while LOVING Uganda and the forming of the charity Starchild, which is growing and thriving today was interesting and informative.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Story Plant Publishers for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Starchild is Michaela Foster Marsh’s memoir of growing up in Scotland with an adoptive brother, navigating his death at a young age and ultimately traveling to Uganda to find his biological family, and then building a charity and a school there.

When I picked this book I thought that it was going to be an in-depth story of transracial adoption, but it is really more about Michaela’s personal journey living with an adoptive brother, a black child adopted into a white family, and how his untimely death helped her discover what she was meant to do in her life. While I wish there had been more stories about Frankie and Michaela growing up, and a deeper look into some of the issues the family may have faced, I enjoyed reading about how Frankie’s birth mother’s family (mainly his biological brothers) embraced Michaela and her partner Rony, and how they ended up creating their charity.

Obviously due to Frankie’s untimely death there are no direct from-the-source mentions of how PTSD from abandonment and loss can subconsciously affect adopted children. There are only mentions of what the author’s parents told her and her insights into some of Frankie’s behaviors as a child, which do however provide some interesting insights. I personally would have loved to read more about Frankie as a child, and also understand more about both his relationship with the author and their older brother.

I really appreciated Michaela’s honesty about her journey to Uganda, and her wish to find Frankie’s biological family and do something in his name for the children of Uganda, while all the same avoiding developing a white savior complex. I also enjoyed reading about her parents (who seemed wonderful), and Frankie’s biological family, and also about Starchild, the charity she created in Frankie’s name.

There were a few generalizations here and there, but all in all this is quite an interesting and insightful read. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must have been to grow up with a brother who may have been adopted but felt more like a twin than anything else, and to lose him before his adult life had barely begun. It felt like Michaela spent a lot of her life searching for something that she ended up finding in Uganda, which is a lovely way to keep her brother’s memory alive. And my absolute favorite part of the book is how they decided to create a school for arts, and then another for children with disabilities - every child needs to be given the chance to thrive, and to express themselves in any way that they can and that feels natural to them.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a terrific book about the love of a sibling for another that transcends cultural boundaries! I appreciated the author's willingness to share her story and that of her brother, as it is somehow both very foreign and very familiar all at once. It was a great reminder of how unique and similar all our lives are.