There are many different ways to make a family. You can have two parents of the same gender, two parents with different genders, blended families, foster families, adoptive families, and more. Welcome to the Family is a book that attempts to introduce and normalize the ideas of Surrogacy, IVF, Foster Families, Adoptive Families, and more, but does it hit the mark? Find out below!
Goober Says:
This book has a lot of mommies, daddies, babies and kids in it! I like to help turn the pages, and see all the different kinds of people who have families. My Family is a blended family (Guppy is -technically- my half sister). This book was fun to look at, and there wasn’t too many words to get through.
3 out of 5 I don’t know how it tasted, because I was full from lunch, but seeing all the kids and babies made me happy!
Mama Says:
This was an interesting read. It serves a great purpose, in that it introduces a LOT of different family styles, including childless adults and adults who live with roommates (bonus: it’s a very simple representation of group living, so it COULD be used to open a discussion about polyamory or families with roommates-like mine!). This book also mentions families created by IVF, surrogacy, same sex couples, blended families, adoption, and foster families, so the representation is really extensive. I do get a weird feeling about some of the offhand comments in the book. (Including using the phrase “came from a glass dish” multiple times to refer to babies conceived via IVF, as well as a comparison to getting a baby from a “shop” in regards to using a clinic for a sperm donor). My child was conceived naturally, so I’m not really sure if this is an appropriate or respectful way to portray these methods of conception, however, they are all portrayed via “side comments” and speech bubbles between characters on the pages, and not in the main body of the story, so I elected to skip those parts anyway, due to Goober’s attention span.
Mama’s Rating:
7 out of 10 the kind of judgemental teddy bear character, and odd speech bubble conversations about sperm donation and IVF were a little awkward for me, but the main body of the book was very respectful and informative, and is a great way to introduce children to the many different kinds of families in our society, and works very hard to normalize those ideas.
Get the book here!
Bookwyrm Mama 