The Shiniest Jewel: A Family Love Story
A moving graphic memoir that poignantly recounts Marian Henley's trials and tribulations in her late 40s: adopting a baby from Russia, deciding whether to marry her younger boyfriend, and coping with her elderly father's illness.
At 49, cartoonist Marian Henley hasn't committed to marrying the man with whom she has been dating for seven years. But as the Big 5-0 looms, she realizes that above all else she wants a child. Her story follows the heartbreaking ups and downs of going through the international adoption process; deciding when it's time to grow up and maybe even get married; and in the end, it's the story of a daughter's relationship with her father, and how becoming a mother finally led her to understand him.
The Shiniest Jewel is a touching narrative, accompanied by Marian's winsome drawings, that beautifully weaves together her realizations about the joy, and sometimes heartbreak, of building a family.
Reviews
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"Nationally published comic strip artist Henley offers a warm, funny memoir of adopting her son, William, which will make you cry....a near perfect book."
Publisher’s Weekly
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"A fantastic book in several ways--the story, the writing, the characters and the cartoons. It's real!"
Folksinger, songwriter and activist Pete Seeger
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"THE SHINIEST JEWEL is one of the most heartbreaking, funny, poignant stories I've ever read. Full of joy and hope, but without a shred of sentimentality, this memoir shot straight to my heart one moment, then made me yelp with laughter the next. The illustrations are simply brilliant. What a miracle of a book."
author of Happiness Sold Separately Lolly Winston
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"An artfully told story of love, death, birth, and bureaucracy."
creator of Bizarro Dan Piraro
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"Spare, poetic storytelling conveys a tender, bare-bones depiction of personal growth, told simply enough to engage young and old alike."
Kirkus
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“A gripping graphic tour de force.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer