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A family is a family is a family [electronic resource].
2020
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When a teacher asks her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different, but the same in one important way ...

When a teacher asks the children in her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different in many ways — but the same in the one way that matters most of all.

One child is worried that her family is just too different to explain, but listens as her classmates talk about what makes their families special. One is raised by a grandmother, and another has two dads. One has many stepsiblings, and another has a new baby in the family.

As her classmates describe who they live with and who loves them — family of every shape, size and every kind of relation — the child realizes that as long as her family is full of caring people, it is special.

A warm and whimsical look at many types of families, written by award-winning author Sara O’Leary, with quirky and sweet illustrations by Qin Leng.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1
With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.2
Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.6
Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.9
Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.6
Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

- (House Of Anansi)

When a teacher asks her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different, but the same in one important way ...

- (House Of Anansi)

When a teacher asks her class to think about what makes their families special, the answers are all different, but the same in one important way ... - (Human Kinetics)

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

A picture-book affirmation of family diversity.The opening double-page spread depicts a diverse class of 13 children sitting at their desks in a circle when their teacher asks them to share "what we thought made our family special." The first-person narrator silently worries. "My family is not like everybody else's." The accompanying illustration shows one child, seated at a desk across the circle from the teacher, with eyes downcast, red cheeks, and closed body language. The following spreads are narrated by individual classmates who deliver matter-of-fact, often humorous commentary on their families, augmented by Leng's appealing cartoon illustrations that lend humor and vitality to characterization. The broad diversity of family constellations is refreshing and ultimately soothing to the worried child from the first spread. After hearing classmates talk about having two moms, two dads, many siblings, divorced parents, a blended family, single parents, mixed-race families, a grandmother who's "my everything," and more, the narrator recalls a time when a woman at the park "asked my foster mother to point out her real children. ‘Oh I don't have any imaginary children,' Mom said. ‘All my children are real.' " This good-natured but firm response is both empowering and instructive, as is the welcome inclusion of a foster family in this thoughtful, needed book. A-plus fabulous. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus 2016 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

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