Mother Number Zero

Fay was adopted when he was a baby. He knows only that his birth mother escaped the war in Bosnia and that he arrived in his new home with nothing more than a squeaky toy and a few clothes. His older sister Bing was adopted too, from China, where she was found abandoned on the street.When Fay's friend Maud discovers he is adopted, she urges him to search for his birth mother, but this creates mayhem at home, since there is no possibility of Bing ever being able to find her birth mother. Gradually Fay's complicated feelings about searching for his mother and his ambivalent feelings for Maud unfold. Hof's insight into human nature results in a truthful, sometimes funny, sometimes painful rendering of family life and the challenges of being adopted.

Marjolijn Hof (www.marjolijnhof.nl), formerly a children’s librarian, always dreamed of being a writer. When her first novel, Against the Odds (Een kleine kans), was published it met with high critical acclaim, winning three major Dutch and Flemish children’s book prizes — the Golden Owl Juvenile Literature Prize, the Golden Owl Young Reader’s Prize and the Golden Slate Pencil. It was also nominated for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Youth Literature Award) and has been translated into twelve languages. Hof has written picture books and several other novels. Johanna H. Prins and Johanna W. Prins are a daughter-mother team who have translated many books together, including Against the Odds and Mother Number Zero, both by Marjolijn Hof.