This bright and cheery book introduces readers to a joyous and diverse community as seen through the eyes of a child. The narrator explains that Rainbow Street has a lot of street parties, for birthdays, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Halloween, and Holi. Today, however, they’re celebrating Granny’s 90th birthday.
The first to arrive are the narrator’s two fathers, and “Dad’s people have lived here for thousands of years.” Then comes the narrator’s best friend, who has two homes because her parents don’t live together. The narrator herself explains that she has three homes: her fathers’, her Ma and stepmum’s, and her mum and Felix’s. When Mum and Felix show up later, both read as women; I assume that Felix is a rare woman with that name. How the family changed over time is left unexplained, but doesn’t really matter for the purpose of this story. Three homes is “Triple the fun!” the narrator says.
We see the party continue with fireworks, foods, and a giant map of the world painted onto the street, where everyone puts a candle to indicate where their ancestors came from. The story then turns to more observations about the people at the party and reminiscences of celebrations past, along with the introduction of more neighbors, each bringing foods that reflect their countries of origin and ethnicities.
Finally, all gather round—and Granny makes a surprising entrance that I won’t spoil.
There’s a lot going on here, as the story showcases diversity of family structure as well as of heritage and geographical origin, and jumps from vignette to vignette, but it’s good-hearted and fun. Adults may wish to see which aspect of the community catches children’s eyes on any given read-through, and offer further discussion of that as needed.
The narrator and one dad are White; the other is brown-skinned, presumably indigenous because of the reference above. (The book was first published in Australia.)
