All Kinds of Families

“Notes for teachers, parents, and caregivers”, a closing section in All Kinds of Families, explains the book’s purpose:

This book introduces children to the topic of families, and the many ways in which families may be put together and change over time. This book aims to show children that there is no such thing as a “normal” family. Families come in all shapes and sizes – single-parent, single-sex, blended families, foster and adoptive families, and so on.

All Kinds of Families is one of four books in the “All Kinds of People” series originally published in 2019 by Franklin Watts in England. Unlike most Crabtree books, the books in this series do not use full-colour photos. Instead, the books contain cartoon-like art that has been rendered by Ayesha Rubio & Jenny Palmer (with the exception of Feelings which credits only Ayesha Rubio). The artwork portraying the children and adults is remarkably inclusive and captures the spectrum of differences while strongly supporting the text.

The books in the series employ a form of dual text wherein the main text is delivered via third person while speech balloons containing bolded text are used to provide first person “child” examples of the points being made by the main text. For example, when the main text talks about one of the effects that a divorce might have, the text reads:

Some children share their time between their mom and dad. The parent who has moved away is still part of their family.

The accompanying illustration shows two children in their bedroom placing clothing and toys in their backpacks, with the girl saying:

We live with our mom during the week, and go to our dad’s house on weekends.

Though All Kinds of Families has a Table of Contents with the chapters having titles, such as “Blended families” and “Families change”, these titles are not repeated within the book. A few words within the two texts are highlighted, and these words are defined in “Useful Words” which shares the last page with an index. “Notes for teachers, parents, and caregivers”, which appears on the volume’s penultimate pair of pages, offers adults some suggestions on speaking to children about changes in family life, such as divorce, remarriage and adoption. This section also contains the URLs for three websites for parents and educators.

The content of All Kinds of Families does deliver on the author’s intent of showing that there is no such thing as an “normal” family, and the book, with its simple text, is both informative and a discussion-starter.