cover image Grandad's Tree: Poems about Families

Grandad's Tree: Poems about Families

. Barefoot Books, $16.99 (32pp) ISBN 978-1-84148-541-6

Grandad's Tree: Poems About Families, ed. by Jill Bennett, illus. by Julia Cairns, begins with Mary Ann Hoberman's exuberant ""What Is a Family?"" (""A pair like a kanga and roo is a family!/ A calf and a cow that go moo is a family!"") and ends with Carl Sandburg's philosophical ""Family"" (""There is only one child in the world/ and the Child's name is All Children""). In Cairns's portraits, people sport electric colors and patterns from Africa, a British boy wears a ""hulky bulky thick checkered jacket"" that belonged to his grandfather in England, and a Japanese mother and daughter shake a cherry tree in Christina Rossetti's ""Let's Be Merry.""