I know I'm not alone in wanting to have my kids around, not tucked away in their bedrooms, and that means the kid’s stuff is around too. Having mentioned that, I am also aware of the fact that some parts are left open-ended (like above) for parents to build onto and provide further details as they wish – which may have been the purpose after all.

I wonder if the book would be useful when teaching speakers of English as a Second Language, for example, in a pre-school classroom, about English culture. Our parcels are packed in cardboard boxes, cushioned with recyclable paper and closed with strong paper tape. Thank you to our panel of reviewers; Sedo and Korai Charlie, Amy, Isaac and Cassius and Crina and Sebastian for reviewing All About Families book by Usborne. That’s why, with the help of an interior designer, I created new colours for the original, classic Tidy Books bookcase. As a family, we have thoroughly enjoyed sharing this book with our son during our bedtime and weekend reads.They speak various languages, eat different sorts of food, live in different kinds of homes and celebrate special occasions in a variety of ways. I would like to have seen more depth and detail about family life, and humour to provoke more interest or questions. Now her Tidy Books bookcases and storage designs are encouraging independence and a love of reading in kids all over the world. It could also support a nursery or pre-school project on family trees, or possibly even in a Reception classroom for EAL pupils. Whatever size or shape, whatever background you come from, whatever language you speak, homes you live in, and occasions you celebrate.

Unlike the Usborne ‘look inside’ books that have larger more complex illustrations and smaller flaps to lift, which make the reading more interactive, this book is very plain and each page looks very similar to the last. With delightful illustrations, this glorious celebration of family diversity talks about lone-parent families, adoptive, foster, divorced, remarried, and mixed race families, and lots, lots more, showing little children that families come in all shapes and sizes. I personally loved the family tree and I will use it when my son is 6 or 7 to make our own family tree. Although we were appreciative that the audience of this Usborne All About Families book are young people, it would be really nice to see words such as ‘gay’ / ‘same sex relationships’ during the parts where it explained ‘What is family? Felicity has worked for Usborne for over 30 years and has written and edited hundreds of titles, from books on tractors to genetics, from Shakespeare to mental health, and plenty of sparkly unicorns.

Our son could identify which family was similar to ours and learning about people speaking different languages in families (he hadn’t heard us speak another language rather than English until then) and it aroused his interest in languages and he made efforts to learn words in my (dad’s) language. It was nice to see a lot of diversity in this book, All About Families by Usborne, as we a re a very small, mixed race family where parents are bilingual in different languages. This book is more for dipping in and out of over a few days as it has loads of information and parents have to make it exciting for child to actually stay still and read. Images about di fferent customs is a great way of knowing about how other religions and countries celebrate important dates.