Wednesday, February 1, 2012

One Nutty Family

Since I used to be a foster parent (the kids are all grown now) I wanted to read One Nutty Family by James Byers. It's a cute picture book with charming illustrations by Kevin Collier.
I'm a bit confused by the use of acorns to represent the foster children, and would have preferred that he use an animal or bird. Otherwise I think the book does a great job of portraying the relationships in a good foster family. Unfortunately, not all of them are good and many foster kids don't get to stay in the same home permanently as a forever family. I hope families who share this book will be inspired to become like the one portrayed in it.
The questions for discussion at the end would be great to share in families or classrooms, and some of them apply to traditional or step families as well as to foster ones.
There aren't enough books for kids about foster families and I'm delighted that James Byers has written this one.

3 comments:

Faith, Hope & Lovebugs said...

Where did you find this book? Our family does foster care and I am looking for books to read to our foster children. I could not find it on amazon. Thanks for the insight!

Tricia

BarbaraB said...

Thanks for this review, Janet Ann; it's good to get the word out about books like this.

Janet Ann Collins said...

Thanks for the comments. I agree that there's a need for this kind of book. It should be up on Amazon soon, or it can be purchased at http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/nutty-family.htm