The Families of our Neighborhood
You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Families-our-Neighborhood-childrens-neighborhood-ebook/dp/B07G6TPWGH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Free on Kindle Unlimited or $11.99 paperback
A book completely unique just as each of the families in this story. A great read to introduce your child to diversity and understanding that your family isn’t the only family. From single parents, to grandmas and grandpas as parents, LGBT parents, big families and small, this book does a great job at acknowledging the different families all around us. I don’t know of many other books along this line but there need to be more! My brother is gay and I feel like it is important to have open conversations with my daughter. Though we live our lives differently, it’s important to acknowledge love in it’s various forms. I love that this book will give me a way to explain this to my daughter.
At first, I couldn’t explain it but it bothered me that the gay couple were dressed in tuxes. The more I talked with my brother about it, the more we agreed that if they were in everyday clothing, it wouldn’t have been as obvious. Them being in tuxes opens the door to discuss it more directly.
I chatted with my brother about this a little bit more to see how he felt about it. I felt like I needed to ask the opinion of someone that this book was trying to represent, if that makes sense. We both felt like it could have gone farther with representing that sometimes kids have two dads (or two moms) instead of a dad and a mom. As far as the reader goes, they could be brothers, uncles, etc… unless you are intentional and discuss it. So if that was the main goal (though I don’t think it was, I think it was just an intro to diversity and a topic starter) then it didn’t go far enough. They are holding hands and in tuxes which she does to show they are married but I think it wouldn’t be too obvious to a youngster.
It may have been better to have them in everyday clothes with their babe but verbiage that explained that they were married. We both agreed it was a good book though. It could have gone farther, but that’s okay. She was definitely headed in the right direction. Definitely not bad in any way, in my opinion. 🙂
I am taking one star off just because I feel like some of the rhyming is a stretch. No biggie, some books are like that and it can be hard to get it to be catchy. But overall, it wasn’t bad at all.
There is representation of blended families, different races, sexual orientation, grandparents as parent figures, and more. I think she really hit the nail on the head by directly approaching the various families we encounter. Writing a book about diversity can be difficult, but I feel like she did an excellent job. The only thing it comes down to is your personal preference on when to introduce a book like this. You can start young and instill it in them as early as toddler age or hold off until you think they are ready for it. Totally your own call, but for me, we are going to start diving into diversity now.
