Dads do all kinds of things, look different, and have different family structures, but all love and adore their children, asserts this joyful, rhyming ode to fatherhood, which includes two two-dad families in it.
While this book covers basically the same idea as the similarly titled Some Daddies, the bouncy rhymes here set it apart and make it feel a little more fun. And while both books show dads and families with a variety of racial, ethnic, and religious identities, Some Dads is better at showing them in cultural context: a Sikh dad cooks flatbreads with his son; a Jewish two-dad couple marries under a chuppah (wedding canopy); a Black dad and mom jump the broom. Single dads are also explicitly acknowledged: “Some dads have husbands./And some dads have wives./Some stay unmarried for all their lives.”
As with Some Daddies, there are no identifiable transgender dads, though of course readers are free to imagine that some of them are. We do see a few of the dads doing traditionally gender atypical things, like cooking dinner and keeping house.
Author/illustrator Fifi Abu’s brightly patterned, slightly whimsical images make the book visually fun as well.
A recommended title for dads, those they love, and those who love them.
