Collecting The Diamonds is a story about Nua, a child who comes home to live with new parents Toni and Jordan. We journey with them as they encounter challenges and grow love, attachment and trust through small diamond moments

Written by Sian Booth and Siobhan Rhodes - adopted twin sisters - Siobhan is also an adoptive parent. The sisters wrote this book because they wanted to represent a real adoption story. Quite often adoption is represented as a fairy-tale happy ending. But in many ways adoption is just the beginning of a wonderful, challenging, demanding and uplifting journey.

The book explores the concept of diamond moments. These are small every day moments where you build connection with your child. Reflecting on these diamond moments can help you stay present and support one and other when times are difficult.

We caught up with Siobhan to ask her a few questions about the book and the beautiful, accompanying, animation:

What or who inspired you to write Nua’s story?

When my husband and I adopted our son we wanted to share children’s story books which reflected our journey. But nothing really seemed to tell the story of modern day adoption in quite the right way for us. We had a special story book made for us by an artist friend about our adoption journey. We thought wouldn’t it be amazing to get a book like this into the homes of every adoptive family.

You have experience of ‘both sides of adoption’ so to speak, how do you think this has influenced Nua’s story?

Whilst the adoption landscape has changed significantly from the time I was adopted to now, what remains the same is an adoptive parents unconditional love for their child. I think that dual perspective of adopter and adoptee comes through so you see the uncertainty of Nua in this new environment and you see the at times confusion from Nua’s parents as they try to navigate challenges.

What would you like people to take away from Nua’s story?

For recent and established adoptive families we hope parents will read this with their children and reflect on the small ways they build connection, attachment and trust. Prospective adopters would gain a lot of awareness of the therapeutic way you would approach typical challenges with an adopted child. We have also shared the book with schools who we hope will share the book with young people who may not have the same level of awareness about adoption related issues.

Would you like to write more stories centred around adoption?

We want to start a project to get bespoke story books made for families to tell their unique life story in a really accessible way. We would love to hear from anyone interested in supporting us with this.

What is your aim for the book?

We want this book to be enjoyed by many kinds of families so that the unique experience of adoption can be better understood. We also want the adoption community in sharing this book to reflect on the everyday moments where they build trust with their children. 

This family are experiencing typical challenges associated with children who have experienced trauma. What children like Nua need are parents who can offer compassion and love to restore a child’s faith in adults. We want to show people than anyone can adopt and we hope a wide range of people can see themselves in the main characters."

This is the first book Siobhan and Sian have published. They would like to thank The Mighty Creatives, all Kickstarter backers, illustrator Lewis Foulstone for bringing the story to life, Stacey Moon-Tracey who helped with the words, Ryan Harston (Urban Conceptz) for his stunning animation, their trustees, their supportive husbands Tom and Wayne, their family and their children who inspire them everyday.