A family is like a cake by Shona Innes

Ill. by Irisz Agocs. A Big Hug Book. Five Mile Press, 2015. ISBN 9781760066314
(Age: 5+) Families, Emotions. One in the series A Big Hug Book, written by clinical psychologist, Shona Innes, the books create a story around families portraying all the emotions we expect to see in a family. The stories create a platform whereby younger readers can discuss and talk about their emotions within their family or school, through the emotions portrayed in the stories. Although didactic, the stories do fill a niche in schools where something quite explicit is needed to create the platform on which to discuss such issues.
In A family is like a cake, the family is compared with a cake, having different shapes and sizes, full of different ingredients, needing mixing carefully, having rules, and so on. Each time a new comparison is introduced it is expanded with a family in mind, the illustrations adding to the text, drawing the readers' eyes to the animals portrayed, reinforcing what has been said. And sometimes the cake does not turn out as everyone wants and this too is discussed towards the end of the book.
This would make a terrific introduction to a discussion or unit about families, springboarding to the array of books about families working, playing, laughing and being together.
Fran Knight