In this book about different kinds of families, we meet a young cylinder who lives with a sphere grandmother, a triangle with pyramid foster parents, a trapezoid with heptagon and nonagon moms, a triangular prism with decagon dads, and more. Each young shape in a wide range of family types tells us a little about what makes their family special.
Author Lynn Parrish Sutton weaves geometry-related puns throughout, such as when a triangle observes, “I don’t mean to be obtuse, but sometimes I just can’t help it.”) Some of the references may go over young readers’ heads, however, for example, when the square explains that icosahedron grandpa “tells great stories, like how he got my grandmother to marry him, even though he’s a platonic solid!” And geometrical terms aside, a few words also seem complex for the target age group (“coincidentally,” “dimensions,” “spatially”).
One pun could also be off-putting to families with members who have anger issues, when a cone explains that “Dad can’t visit for a while. He says he’s trying to shape up! He is almost finished with his angle management class.”
The point about families coming in all shapes and sizes is well made, however, and young readers may enjoy learning about both the many types of families and the many types of shapes depicted here. (Do you know what a “balbis” is?) I recommend supplementing the book with a book showing diverse human families, however, to reinforce the idea that such families really exist in the world around us.
Content warning: One character who lives with a dad notes that mom “died when I was little.” No details are given, and the family remembers her fondly, but adults may want to be alert in case parental death is a troubling topic for some young readers.
