To create this charming book about extended family relation, author Heather Jopling has drawn from her own life in the midst of a network of traditional and non-traditional family relations—she has been a surrogate for a gay family and her husband has been a sperm donor for a lesbian family.
The tale is told from the perspective of a young girl, Larissa, going through her family scrapbook. “This is my Mummy and Daddy,” she begins, and then goes on to introduce us to her various grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the rest of her relatives, including the donor-siblings (and their two dads and two moms, respectively) from her mom’s surrogacy and dad’s sperm donation, her two grandmas, married to each other, her pets, and the close family friends whom she calls aunts. Jopling doesn’t get into the details of surrogacy or sperm donation, though, saying only that Larissa’s mom and dad helped make the other families, which feels narratively appropriate.
Larissa adds various asides that give us colorful details about everyone’s jobs, hobbies, and nicknames. “People seem sad when they find out I am an only child,” she says at the end, “Until I tell them the whole story. Then they’re not so sad anymore.” I wonder if the reference to the sadness of being an only child (even if then denied) will worry children who haven’t before thought about it this way. Despite this qualm, I think The Not-So-Only Child is a sweet, much-needed tale showing the variety of family connections a person can have today.
