I've long enjoyed these types of books; two of my favorite childhood books were [b:Come Over to My House|432264|Come Over to My House|Dr. Seuss|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1326945629s/432264.jpg|421228] by Dr. Seuss and [b:How Children Lived|1236262|How Children Lived|Christopher Rice|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388446865s/1236262.jpg|1224894] by Christopher Rice. Like those two books, Families Around the World focuses on a wide range of children from countries and cultures all around the globe. Each child greets the reader in his or her native language and then tells a little about him- or herself and a typical day in his or her life. Each spread is filled with collage-like illustrations that show the child's family and surroundings.

There is certainly a range of skin-tones, religions, and nationalities on display. But, although the text says families may be "big or small," it isn't always easy to figure out just how big or small each family is. Many of the spreads don't explicitly state how many siblings the child has or with which parents or guardians the child lives, and the illustrations aren't usually any more clear. There are families depicted that have one, two, or even three kids, but it appears the authors' idea of "big" families is large extended families--not families with several siblings. I didn't see any families shown that came close to my own, a family of five kids, and there are families bigger than mine that won't see themselves reflected in these pages. The authors worked hard to showcase every other type of family diversity that I'm surprised they didn't think to include a family of more than 3 kids amongst the 14 families they introduce.

Families Around the World is a fun read and a good addition to a library of family diversity books. It's definitely not all-inclusive, though, and would be best when used in concert with other books highlighting family types and diversity.

Note: I received a digital galley of this book through NetGalley. ( )

The reader is able to learn about fourteen children from different places in the world and their families. There are a variety of family types-- a single parent, multiracial parents and same-sex parents. The reader can observe how lives can be the same no matter where we live.

This is a beautifully illustrated book that I would absolutely use in my classroom to talk about diversity and the positives of various family structures. Keep on the list for back to school.

I really enjoyed reading this book for many reasons. Although this book is recommended for ages 3-5, I believe this would be an engaging story for most elementary school students. It offers great cultural perspectives for several countries, since each page focuses on a family from a new country with a different family dynamic. The book describes members of each family, which country the family is from, parts of their daily routines, and foods they eat. Each story is short, but has a lot of detail and gives the reader a lot of information about each family. There are 3-4 different illustrations on each page that accurately depict what is being described in the text. These illustrations are vibrant and detailed. There is a glossary at the end of the book, so children can learn how to say basic family vocabulary in the languages that are mentioned. There are many characters from all different backgrounds, so almost any child could relate to at least one of the characters. The main idea of this book is that people and families are all different, but all equal in this world. This is demonstrated with the quote, “It doesn’t matter where in the world you live—in a castle or under a palm lead roof. Families around the world have the same hopes and dreams!” This is a message that can be inspirational for everyone, so I would recommend this story for all elementary school classrooms. ( )

Families Around the World is a book with a collection of families from around the world that are explained with first-person perspective of children from the families. The children provide insight into daily routine, foods, clothing, entertainment, living arrangements, etc. The main message of the book is despite where families may be located in the world, they still all have the same hopes and dreams. I personally found this to be a terrific read, especially from a multicultural perspective. The reasons for my opinion are: the book provides a wide array of perspectives from different cultures; the book is written from the first-person perspective of children; and lastly, the books illustrations do a great job at highlighting both the similarities and differences between cultures. The books array of cultural diversity is what makes it a winner for me. The book in total offers 14 different countries to look at. They span from the U.S to Brazil to Kenya and more! In addition, the information written from each country is written from the perspective of a child from the country telling about his or her family. Take for instance, Jean-Luc, a boy from France who tells about his life in France; he reveals that he has no mother and is baby sat by his grandfather until his father picks him up to go home. This first-person perspective allows readers to feel more comfortable and personable with the text. Lastly, the illustrations portray the people of different counties looking much different from one another as well as the objects found in their daily lives. However, sometimes the author will use illustrations to show similarities as well. For example, on the Netherlands and England pages, characters are seen sitting on sofas to show how they are similar; whereas, the Kenya page portrays characters sitting on the ground to show the difference between the cultures. ( )