The story is about a kid talking about his family and all the different people that make up his family.
The main characters are Eliza, Harriet, Dad and Dad (he has two dads) and Babs the stepmum. I think the main character is a boy but we don’t really know his name. He is telling us the story.
The characters don’t really face any problems or challenges but they are quite funny to read about.
It starts to get a bit confusing towards the end because the boy has lots of people in his family but some are not fully related to him, like his half-sister, which means she has a different dad to the boy. At the end it seems like he needs a map to work out how everyone is related.
There are not amazing surprises or twists in this story but I really like it anyway.
The illustrations were very funny and colourful and I really like the boy’s Dad’s page where he cuts off his legs. This is my favourite part of the book because it’s like a joke – ‘Well cut off my legs and call me short!’ That’s funny! The pictures show one thing like a holey Harriet but really she is his whole sister.
The end of the book show that the kid doesn’t just have a family tree, he has a family forest. (It’s a play on words, which I know about.)
I like everything about this book but I really like Harriet’s long hair, too.
I learned from this story that there are many different families and some are like forests but some are like ours. We don’t have a big family but we have a dog who is part of our forest. And you don’t always need a big forest to make a family.
I give this book a 5 out of 5 (equals highest mark from me).
- this review by Miss Cheetah, age 7¾, daughter of author Dimity Powell of Dim’s Write Stuff and Boomerang Blogs.
Title: Family Forest
Author: Kim Kane
Illustrator: Lucia Masciullo
Publisher: Hardie Grant Egmont, $24.95 RRP
Publication Date: 3 May 2010
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781921564703
For ages: 4+
Type: Picture book
