What is a family? Once, it was said to be a father, mother, boy, girl, cat and dog living in a house with a garden. But as times have changed, families have changed too, and now there are almost as many kinds of families as colours of the rainbow - from a mum and dad or single parent to two mums or two dads, from a mixed-race family to children with different mums and dads, from families with a disabled member to those with a mum or dad in prison. Mary Hoffman takes a look through children's eyes at the wide varieties of family life: from homes, food, ways of celebrating, schools and holidays to getting around, jobs and housework, from extended families, languages and hobbies to pets and family trees - and she concludes that, for most people, their own family is the best one of all! With Ros Asquith's delightful pictures, this book takes a fresh, optimistic look at families of today.

Author Biography

MARY HOFFMAN is the internationally acclaimed author of over 100 books for children, ranging from picture books to teenage fiction. Mary Hoffman lives in Oxfordshire. ROS ASQUITH has been a Guardian cartoonist for 20 years, and has written and illustrated over 70 books for young people, including the bestseller The Great Big Book of Families, with Mary Hoffman, the Teenage Worrier series, Letters from an Alien Schoolboy-which was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize- and her debut picture story book It's Not Fairy. Ros lives in north London with her husband and two sons.