The true story of a four-year-old Chinese orphan who convinces her adoptive American family to return to China to rescue the little boy she couldn't forget.

Adopted by an American family at age four, Jaclyn traveled to her new home with a great burden. Her new family had to leave behind a little boy who had been under her charge at the Chinese orphanage where Jaclyn fought the odds against abandonment, institutionalization, and hunger-not for herself, but on behalf of this even smaller child, whom she regarded as her responsibility.

Jaclyn's saga spans oceans and cultures. The Waiting Child is an extraordinary story of human resilience in the face of profound loss and suffering-and a testament to the ability of a loving heart to prevail over great adversity. Jaclyn's unshakable determination to bring to her new life the child she had cared for in the institution, the one she believed with all her heart was "her baby," will change all assumptions made about the human spirit. In the end, this moving story affirms everything that is good and hopeful in life, when, after a two-year effort, the little boy is brought to this country as the adopted son of Jaclyn's American aunt and uncle.

"It is a story about defying the odds. . . . And stripped to its core, it is a story about the remarkable making of a family." - Detroit News

"Many adoptive parents can tell amazing tales about how their children joined their family, but few are as remarkable as Cindy and Rick Champnella's." - Child Magazine