For children adopted internationally, books can provide a meaningful window into the culture to which they were born. Here, adoptive mom Riann Schell shares a reading list of 21 books for internationally adopted kids — including those deeply rooted in and about the culture of the author, and those whose themes transcend culture, place and time.  “Please, just one more chapter?” This was the plea my mother heard as we gathered for a story before bed. We loved the adventures of Little Britches, cheered on the Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie, and laughed at the cleverness of The Great Brain. Although read-alouds and chapter books defined the evenings, picture books filled the nooks and crannies of our days. When the library bookmobile came to town, we filled a bushel basket, and a long-distance aunt and uncle sent paper-wrapped parcels of secondhand books to our mailbox. Much of my childhood was defined by the stories in those pages. My bookshelves today hold some of the same books, my childish handwriting inside the front cover. There are tattered paperbacks with thrift store stickers on the spine, antique editions of favorite classics, hardbound books bought during a stretch working at a bookstore in college, award-winning titles and pages yet unturned. Today, my family is nearly as diverse as the titles on those shelves, and I, too, hear the plea each evening, “Please, just one more chapter?” (more…)