Grown-Ups
Book Review: An Orphan No More, by Jerry and Jordan Windle
Rodney the rooster dreams of being a father. Jordy the duckling is orphaned, left alone after his parents are killed. An Orphan No More tells of how the duckling and the rooster become a family.
When Rodney comes across an orphaned duck egg, he ignores the warnings of the other farm animals—who say he can’t be a parent on his own—and cares for the egg until it hatches. He names the duckling Jordy, after a boy in a bedtime story he heard growing up.
The two face challenges—because Rodney is a rooster, he doesn’t know how to swim himself. Jordy can’t be kept out of the water, though, and under his father’s encouragement he begins to learn. Jordy also faces difficult questions from the other ducklings on the pond, because he and his father look different from one another. But Rodney is able to explain that no matter what they look like, they are a family.
The story in many ways parallels the experiences of its authors. Jerry Windle adopted Jordan from an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. At the end of the book, Rodney tells Jordy the bedtime story of a man who wanted to be a father and a little boy in an orphanage in Cambodia who dreamed of having a family.
Visit www.anorphannomore.com to order the book and learn more about the amazing story it is based on. You can also read more about Jordan in his profile this month.
Author
Staff Writer Hannah Crawford graduated from Carleton College with a major in English and a concentration in Latin American Studies. Apart from reading, her great love is theater, which is one of the many reasons she is very excited to have recently moved to Minneapolis.
