Connecting Threads – Five Siblings Lost and Found

by Janet Chan

Who am I? Where did I come from? These questions are ones that many adoptees may have found themselves asking. In Connecting Threads: Five Siblings Lost and Found, EM Blake shares her personal experience of being adopted and finding answers to these compelling questions. Blake takes us on a journey through her early life with her adoptive family to the discovery of her biological family as an adult. Along with the questions of identity, she also addresses the challenges of not knowing your family medical history.

Removed from her home at an early age, Blake was adopted by a family already experiencing the stress of multiple medical issues who were ultimately unable to bond with her appropriately. Her adoptive mother has brittle diabetes, and her adoptive brother is blind. Through her young eyes, we see the neglect and hardship that she experienced at an early age. At the age of 4, Blake was given the responsibility of monitoring her adoptive mother’s brittle diabetes which was confounded by her drinking. Alcohol was also an influence in her adoptive father’s nighttime terrorizing lectures. Blake tells us of the physical punishments she experienced and how she has forgiven her adoptive parents. Her poignant statement “Not being loved was harder” (p.20) clearly articulates how the effects of the emotional abuse she experienced far outlasted the effects of the physical abuse. Her recollections made me question if her adoptive parents ever saw her as a child to care for or intended to bond with her.

Despite lacking affection and love from her primary caregivers, Blake shows us the sources of love in her childhood. She experiences joy and freedom independently taking the bus to visit Grandma Marie. During these visits, she learns to sew and devours the sweet treats Grandma Marie bakes. Blake shares the fondness she had for Winnie, a friend’s mother, for showing her kindness on her birthdays. She also shows us the peace and serenity she finds in nature. Her resilience shines through in her words and illustrations and infuses a sense of peace interwoven in the traumatic events of her childhood.

After becoming a mother herself, Blake starts the search for her biological family with no idea of who she may find outside of her parents Adoptions in the 1950’s and 60’s were largely closed to ensure confidentiality (Herman, 2012). Blake experiences this roadblock with her own adoption agency. Fortunately, she finds a search agency that assists her in making contact with her biological brother, grandmother, and ultimately her birth parents. Over time, she connects with her three biological sisters and her Native American heritage. Their shared adventures and discovery of each other are depicted as a mostly happy and healing time.

Blake’s soft, colorful illustrations fill the story with light. Through these beautiful drawings, she presents traumatic and hurtful events through a lens of compassion and forgiveness. Sprinkled throughout the book are photographs and document images that give the reader a personalized peek into the lives and events portrayed in the story. While the illustrations are beautiful, I felt that the inclusion of these personal artifacts gave me a connection to the story that I would not have had otherwise.

Content Advisory: This memoir deals with difficult topics for readers including emotional and physical abuse, death, bullying, parental rejection, and alcohol abuse. Blake acknowledges these topics within her story, but I am left with the sense that she largely, if not fully, has left these events in the past. I feel that that hope and peace that is found in this story can be helpful for people experiencing similar situations or shed insight onto an unfamiliar topic for others. As a librarian and former RN, I appreciated the resources and advice on adoption and health information that Ms. Blake provided at the end of her book.

Herman, E. (2012). Confidentiality and sealed records. The Adoption History Project. https://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/confidentiality.htm

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Janet Chan, MLIS, AHIP, RN is a research and education librarian at the University of South Florida Health Libraries. Her research areas include bibliotherapy, graphic medicine, and digital health.