PHILLIPS – Author Elizabeth Cooke is not sure how it happened, but it did.

Cooke wrote a book about the adoption of her Chinese daughter, Tong Ting, in English, had it translated into Chinese and illustrated by a University of Maine Farmington student. Then she traveled to China to work with a publisher there. The book was supposed to be published in both the United States and China, though Chinese distribution isn’t going to happen. Cooke isn’t clear why.

But the real question is why U.S. Customs officials refused to allow a shipment of the seemingly benign children’s books to be released when they arrived in this country in July.

Cooke was despondent when she found out that her 3,000 books were sitting in a New Jersey warehouse and were due to be destroyed. She’d paid $5,000 for them.

For weeks, she made phone calls, wrote e-mails and appealed to whomever would listen, including Rep. Michael Michaud and Sen. Susan Collins.

Though Customs officials were vague initially, her books were held because they were shipped by a company barred from doing business in this country. The shipping company, China North, apparently has had dealings in Iran.

Cooke, an English professor at UMF, found support from her peers at the school. They wrote letters and e-mails to Collins citing a breach of academic freedom.

“It isn’t just a problem for me, but a problem for all of us,” said Cooke.

Wednesday, she received three calls that brought her news she’s been waiting to hear. Michaud’s and Collins’ offices and Customs all left messages: her books would be released.

“When I got the phone calls, before I called anyone, I put on my sneakers and took a long walk in the woods with the dog to the Sandy River, hopping and skipping the whole way,” she said. “I felt like the reason the sky was so blue and the trees so glittery was because I was getting my books.”

Not only will she get the books, but the $5,000 in fines she was facing were waived, according to Jen Burita of Collins’ office.

Burita said three staffers worked on the case to free the books from their warehouse impoundment. They convinced the Treasury Department, which convinced Customs to release them, she said. They also worked to have the fines waived.

“In a post-9/11 world, it is imperative that we closely monitor incoming cargo to ensure that dangerous and illegal items are not permitted to enter our ports. But at the same time, we must ensure that we are not creating unnecessary obstacles to those shipments which are legal, such as Elizabeth Cooke’s books,” Collins said in a written statement.

“The circumstances surrounding Elizabeth Cooke’s situation are unfortunate. But I am very pleased that it appears her books will soon be returned to her. Her story is touching and inspiring and I hope that she soon has the ability to share it with others through her books,” Collins said.

Friday afternoon, Cooke was still calling Customs to get the details straight. She said a Customs official with whom she’d been communicating was particularly nice to her Friday.

“I wanted this one to move for personal reasons,'” Cooke quoted the official as saying. He couldn’t speak about it before, but on Friday he told her he has two adopted children himself.

Now all she has to do is sign some paperwork and figure out how to retrieve 20 cartons of books from the Edison, N.J., warehouse. She hopes to have the books in her possession by sometime next week.

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