No matter your size, shape, or pedigree--if you love each other, you are a family!
Moms, dads, sisters, brothers — and even Great Aunt Sue — appear in dozens of combinations, demonstrating all kinds of nontraditional families! Silly animals are cleverly depicted in framed portraits, and offer a warm celebration of family love. ---from the publisher
32 pages 978-0553499384 Ages 3-7
Keywords: family, relatives, love, being included, humor, differences, grandparents, two moms or two dads, 3 year old, 4 year old, 5 year old, 6 year old, animals
Read alikes: Love Makes a Family; A Family Is a Family Is a Family by Sara O'Leary; The Family Book by Todd Parr
Other reviews:
From School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 1—Imagine a house with many rooms, whose walls each have a different color or wallpaper, accenting a family portrait hanging there. On a rustic wooden wall hangs the first portrait—a large family of ducks posing beside a still pond. The next spread shows three pandas in pink vests, much like the pink oriental wallpaper behind them.
Each portrait features a gently rhyming line: "Some children live with their grandparents…/and some live with an aunt./Some children have many pets…/and some just have a plant." All of these appealing images demonstrate different ways of being a family.
"Some children live with their father./ Some children have two mothers./Some children are adopted./Some have stepsisters and—brothers." The cartoon-style critters contrast pleasantly with more realistic elements—a bamboo plant, a slender ceramic dog, a fat ceramic cat. Families of hippos, tigers, lions, ostriches, and whales join the other family groups in the final spread.
The loud-and-clear message is that "if you love each other, then you are a family." And imagine the many children who will be reassured because they have found a portrait of a family they will recognize as their own. A solid choice for most libraries.—Mary Jean Smith, formerly at Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN