One Family

by George Shannon, Blanca Gómez (Illustrator)

From veteran picture book author George Shannon and up-and-coming artist Blanca Gomez comes a playful, interactive counting book that shows how a family can be big or small and comprised of people of a range of ages, genders and races.

Genres: Picture Books, Family, Childrens, Counting, Storytime, Cultural, Fiction

32 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 2015

About the author

George Shannon is a popular storyteller and former children's librarian whose many notable picture books include Tomorrow's Alphabet, Lizard's Guest, and White Is for Blueberry. Tippy-Toe Chick, Go!, illustrated by Laura Dronzek, was named a Charlotte Zolotow Award Honor Book. George Shannon lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Reviews

[Mississippi Library Commission · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun and wonderful picture book! While it is a counting book, the main focus is families in all their glorious sizes, colors, and combinations. Highly recommended.

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't let the text deceive you; it's quite closely related to the pictures. (Okay, so the first time through I skimmed it and went 'meh.') But really, it explains how several differently sized families can still be "one."

And the illustrations - they're ambiguous, but I think it's a good thing. Lots of races depicted, as well as a single-parent family. But there are also families where you can't quite tell what gender the parents are, or what the relationships are between the adults. And that's not a bad thing, since it will let the kids reading see their own family more easily. If the illustrations clearly established, for example, that there were two mommies and a gran, then that limits the number of kids who are truly "represented." But it could just as easily be a mum, and auntie, and a gran, or a mum and a long-haired dad, or so many other things. And I think that's great.

[Noelle]

i absolutely loved the mood and tone of this story.Very few books have been able to cause me to change immediately while reading. I usually try to read with lots of enthusiasm, but this books makes me want to read in a narrator-style, inviting voice. There are so many ways to use the story to teach.
Great book!

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a counting book, it's a celebration of families, all kinds, and it's wonderful to see and determine just what is being counted on each page. Love seeing the diversity here, and I can't wait to share it with younger children.

[ReadingWench · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get where this book is going, however, I think it would confuse children. I liked the illustrations and the idea of the book.

[pati · Rating 5 out of 5]

One book that is fun to read!

[Garrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

It does not rhyme, but that didn't stop me from singing the whole thing. Did you need to know that for this review? No, but I told you anyway.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A joyous look at how different families can be and how very happy people can be in small and large families. The book is a cheery mix of counting book and family size, moving from one person happily sharing her book with her cat to a very large family of ten with grandparents mixed in. The book celebrates diversity in families as well with people of different ethnic backgrounds and gay parents. This picture book will have every child seeing themselves on the page and able to relate, which is definitely something to be celebrated!

Shannon writes a great little poem that carries this book forward at a brisk and jaunty pace. Each verse looks at a larger family but begins with "One is..." and then the number of people in that family. The verse then goes on to show other objects and items that are that number but still a solid unit, like a bunch of bananas or a flock of birds. The message is one of being loved and included no matter the size of your family or who is part of it.

Gomez's illustrations are lovely. She creates diversity with a sense of ease, rather than it being forced at all. It is a joy to see the final page where all of the families are in the same neighborhood and mingling outside, one big rainbow of people together. Her paper collage illustrations are friendly and filled with small touches that are worth lingering over. It's those touches that make the book feel even more warm and the families all the more loving.

A great pick to celebrate the diversity in every community, this is a great pick to share aloud thanks to the clever rhyme and lovely illustrations. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first read this book on my own as an f&g, it seemed like a nice enough book, but I wasn’t thrilled by it. Reading it with my daughter really changed that for me. It works like a regular counting book, but I was surprised at how much she had to say about all the different families and how they fit together. It was definitely a moment to remember that there can NEVER be enough books that represent diversity for kids, because you can’t anticipate when those categories that you assume they’ve been seeing all along are going to finally come into focus for them.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book! Adorable pictures (lots of little animals, curled up and cute) and a great depiction of diversity. Best of all is the message: everyone in the world is part of one big family. It's a beautiful book, and also an important one.

[Kate Alleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

My family might look a little different than your family. Sometimes family isn't blood related. Loved this story celebrating all different kinds of families.

Thought about reading this during an App Time with a math theme, but might use it for something else instead...

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Playful counting book featuring diverse families.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very cute counting book. My only issue is that the items being counted are small illustrations on the page. I think I would only use this with older children or in a one-on-one situation.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, inclusive counting book. Appealing art and so many different types of families add up to a kid-friendly book that celebrates the complexity of what makes a family.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the illustrator’s attention to detail and homages to classic children’s stories. The eight ducks in a painting recall “Make Way for Ducklings,” and the three bears in a dollhouse recall the classic fairytale. The pictures also celebrate diverse families in terms of ethnicity and gender. Counting makes it an excellent story time choice.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to kids on the concept of one sometimes meaning multiple things: one bowl of pears...one pair of shoes, etc. Shannon and Gomez also show a variety of families that consist of various numbers of diverse people. Really simple and well done.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these illustrations especially the end papers. So clever! I love how this book explores the concepts of groups having small and big numbers within a group ... and concluding that the whole earth is one group of people, one family. So cute.

[Brenna Smotzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Counting book
Title (italicize): One Family
Author: George Shannon
Illustrator (if separate from author): Blanca Gomez
Genre: Concept book, diversity
Theme(s): Diversity, compassion, unity
Opening line/sentence (type directly from text):
One is one.
One lamp. One Clock.
One Book to share.

Brief Book Summary (2-3 sentences in your own words): The story shows different families of all different backgrounds on each page. The story is repeating but each page focuses on a new number, up to 10. You have to find the things on the page that the text says.

Professional Recommendation/Review #1 (cut & paste, details below):
Name of Reviewer: Horn Book
Name of Source (journal, association/organization, etc.) Horn Book
Link to source: http://www.hornbookguide.com/cgi-bin/...
Short blurb from the review(cut & paste)
(2) PS Illustrated by Blanca Gómez. In this loving concept book about the multitudes contained in the number one ("One is five. One bunch of bananas. One hand of cards. One family"), lyrical text and warm illustrations depict diverse families ranging from one member to ten. A final spread brings the families together, their interactions underlined by the conclusion that "one is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family."

Professional Recommendation/Review #2 (cut & paste, details below):
Name of Reviewer: Francisca Goldsmith
Name of Source (journal, association/organization, etc.): CLCD
Link to source: http://www.clcd.com.ezaccess.librarie...
Short blurb from the review(cut & paste)
This counting book celebrates authentic and engaging diversity, featuring families of many sizes, ethnicities, gender orientations, and even ages. Gomez s appealing flat cartoon people all infectiously cheerful and composed of blocky shapes, round heads, and minimal, yet expressive, faces appear at home, in a variety of urban landscapes, or in more exotic tableaux, such as a winter seaside outing. Shannon s gentle counting rhythms subtly illustrate the idea that families come in all shapes and sizes, and little ones will easily catch on to the repeated refrain of One family. The warm full-color page spreads include visual clues to help with counting and plenty of engaging background details. The breadth of diversity on display is refreshing: families include multigenerational homes, interracial marriage, neighboring households, children who identically resemble their parents and those who don t. With a sweet, timeless message and a contemporary setting with which many kids might identify, this is a nice addition to titles like Patricia Polacco s Chicken Sunday (1992) and Mary Ann Hoberman s All Kinds of Families! (2009). Preschool-Grade 2

Response to Two Professional Reviews (3-4 sentences in your own words):
Agree? Disagree? Commonalities and/or differences?
I agree with these reviews. I think that seeing this type of diversity in a counting book, which is somewhere you rarely see diversity, is new and amazing. I think children of all ethnic backgrounds will relate to this. Children will quickly catch onto the repeated phrases, but I think the phrase “One is one” is a confusing line.

Evaluation of Literary Elements (3-4 sentences in your own words):
One Family is beautifully illustrated with very simple shapes and designs. It reminds me a lot of when Molly Bang was creating the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The illustrations look like they clipped out shapes with scissors and pasted them on the page. There is really no shading or anything, it’s just very simple and unique.
I think this is a good story for beginning counters and experienced. Beginning readers and counters will enjoy the simple words and repeated phrases. Experienced readers will enjoy the hidden messages of unity and celebrating diversity.

Consideration of Instructional Application(3-4 sentences in your own words):
I think a mini lesson that can be about what repetition is, what it looks like in stories, and how it can contribute to the story. I could also talk about how sometimes books can show a deeper message than they lead on. This is an awesome story to talk about diversity with young children. After the mini lesson is over I think I would have them create a story about their families or create a repetition story for themselves. I would probably connect this to social studies and we could learn about other cultures and customs around the world. This would also be easy to connect to math.

[A Allen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was odd to me. Here is an example from the book:

"One is four.
One ring of keys. One pile of pups.
One family."

The illustration shows a family of four with four puppies and a key ring with four keys, but"one is four" seems like a confusing sentence to me. Also, I was not a fan of the illustrations in this book.

[Afiya Charaniya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially underwhelmed after reading this book. I had expected something else when someone had told me that the book was about multi-racial families. Instead of being a book about families, I thought the genre of the book was more children's math. But, I enjoyed the moral of the story which was that no matter where you come from you are "one family." When you are reading the book you notice each page focuses on a different number. But when you look at the illustrations, you see that the book has different types of families with all different shapes and sizes. There is definitely different ethnicities and cultures in the book such as Caucasians, Indians, Hispanics, Asians, and Arabs (I am assuming). The characters in the book were like people yo9u would see in your everyday lives. There are many family dynamics such as single-parent, biracial, extended families and much more. Therefore, I didn't see any stereotypes or biases present in the book. The illustrations in the book were very detailed and had all sorts of colors. I think that the text and pictures did correspond with each other but some of the items in the text had very small illustrations. For example, there was a page that said, "One is eight. One box of crayons. One row of ducks. One family" but the crayons are barely visible in the book. I think that this book could be used for any grade in elementary school but the way you implement it and the purpose you have would vary through each grade level. For my younger grades I might do a picture walk but for the upper grades, I could use it to introduce metaphors. I would recommend this book but the teacher would have to be mindful of its use.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diverse picture book (toddler/preschool ages 2+; counting, families)
* Book prominently features diverse characters: a single mom Asian family, a brown-skinned girl with 2 lighter-skinned dads, two kids under the care of their grandparents, a Sikh family, one dark-skinned family, and at least two families of mixed race, with an emphasis on everyone belonging to one community.
* Book is storytime-ready, though a group of wiggly toddlers may have trouble sitting through the whole thing. The countable items are too small for a group to count, but you can also quickly point out the groups, the finding of which is an interactive activity in itself. This would do best with small groups or one-on-one reading, and would probably do better with preschoolers than with toddlers since the storyline is less dynamic (depending on your toddlers--mine are just super wiggly).
* Book fits the Counting theme: sort of. If you are doing a counting theme storytime, though, you probably want to mix up the style of your books, and this would be great for breaking up the "let's count on every page" monotony (you can also do the spread at the end that does provide larger but still not that large, countable objects for 1-10). It would also suit a "Family" theme or maybe even a "community" theme.

[Ana Pedraza · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think one all One Family was a cute book. the book itself was not really a story. It seemed more like a book that incorporated math. Im the book I also noticed that you had to pay close attention to the illustrations because there was very little writing in it. The illustrator is of a different nationality and you can tell that from the pictures. You see different colors and the way that the drawing come to life. In this story there is more diversity based on race. You see all types of skin tones and faces. In many books that children read the main characters tend to be of one race but not in this one. In this book there actually is not just one character it showcases many people and they are all unique. I would say this book is more for very young children. It is much easier to read and the words are repetitive.

[Jordyn Braun]

1. "Take a moment and think about your family. Is your family really big? Do they all live in the same house? Do they all live in Nebraska, or do they live in different states too? Take one minute to share with your shoulder partner about your family." (students share about their family) "We have been doing a lot of research about our family history and ancestors, and we have discovered that many of us have family members who have lived or moved from many different places! The book that we are reading today is called One Family. By looking at the cover, I want you to make a prediction on what kind of family do you think might be in our book?"

2. My opening moves for this book included activating background knowledge by having students think of their own family, raising questions about family size and history, making connections to a previous taught lesson over ancestry and research on family history, and making predictions on what kind of family might be featured in the book.

3. I chose One Family because I really enjoyed the message the book portrays by showing that you can have ONE of something that may be either big or small (one box of crayons, one batch of cookies, etc.) It then took the topic of size and tied it into family which is a very diverse concept among students in the classroom. Some students are only children, while others have a number of siblings, and even further- some students live with family members other than their immediate family. This book opens the conversation of diversity among family and shows that it's okay to have different sizes and types of families.

[Kate Novack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This fiction book is intended to be a counting book as well and a way to teach children that no matter what how big, what race, or culture your family is, it is still a family. I think this book does the best job out of any children's book I have ever read at representing a variety of culture groups. There are African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, Indians, Arabs, and Spanish people depicted in the illustrations throughout the book. There are also all different types of families represented including a single parent home, grandparents/extended family living in the home, biracial families, and raised by grandparents. There are also no negative stereotypes of the represented groups; everyone is all just doing common, everyday activities.
While I think the cultural considerations of this book are awesome, there are some flaws in the actual story and illustrations. The first sentence on each page is "One is __", meaning one page may say, "One is seven." This is intended to mean that seven people in a family is still one singular family. I think that this language, however, could be difficult for young children to comprehend what the story means without a lot of explanation that the book is being metaphorical. This book is also intended to be a counting book and I don't think the illustrations allow for children to find and count the objects easily. The illustrations are mostly of the buildings and background, with the people and objects intended to be counted only taking up about 1-2 inches on the page. It would be difficult for a child to accurately place their finger on each individual item and count.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A counting book that celebrates families of all types, showing there are many different ways to be “one.”

Reasons I love it:
1. Simple text and adorable illustrations celebrates diversity in families. The illustrations show small families and large families, single-parent families, interfaith families, gay parents, interracial parents with biracial children, and people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
2. The illustrations are ambiguous, leaving interpretation of each character’s gender, faith, race and family role up to the reader. They provide a fascinating discussion starter. The ambiguity allows readers to draw their own conclusions; they may see themselves reflected in the text, see friends’ families reflected, or come up with other creative interpretations!
3. It is a concept book about counting that goes beyond a standard 1-2-3 numbers book. The words and illustrations invite readers to examine each page more deeply.
4. In line with the counting concept, the message of family diversity centers around the number “one.” In an abstract, yet easily understood manner, the book celebrates diverse families without smashing the message over readers’ heads.

One Wish: Characters that I interpret to be Asian are drawn with little slanted line slits for eyes. Like, can we get over this slanty, slit-eyed portrayal of Asian people already? Everyone else in the book has dots for eyes; can the Asian people get dots too? Or, can illustrators figure out a way to draw Asian eyes without being so stereotypical? That is all.

[Jim Erekson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I shelved this with informational books, because even though it's in more of a storybook format it's a piece of direct teaching or informative presentation, with clear sermonizing. Because of the preaching, I would have stayed at 3 stars except for the challenge of the thinking in the last half (kudos to Gomez), and the fun play with classifiers that allowed for one thing to be more than one (like one ring of keys or one hand of cards--kudos to Shannon!). This ended up being a much better example of complementary text (words and pictures each tell a unique version of the same story) than I thought it would be.

After getting to about 5 I had to work to piece together the relationships, because Shannon and Gomez didn't spell it out for me. A great way to recognize that I still have biases. At first I thought it was just leading into extended family, but then I realized it's more complicated than that. I would have to talk out each page from 6-10 with other people to see what they think the possibilities are.

[Venus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review originally posted on Children's Atheneum

How many is one? One box of crayons. One batch of cookies. One world. One family.

In this phenomenal picture book, George Shannon and Blanca Gomez treat their readers to a beautiful medley of one, with examples of all kinds of families. There is a ton of diversity throughout, along with depictions of things like single-parent and multi-generational homes. There is also some ambiguity with some of the families that could or could not be same-sex, but this only means that a teacher could read this book to their classroom without fear of being fired. (Personal opinion: People should never be fired or forced to resign over the reading of a children's book to children. Ever.) I also love the simple concept of the number one and how it has many different meanings, which is far more complex than it seems to a four-year-old.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shannon, G. (2015). One family. New York, NY: Frances Foster Books.

One Family by George Shannon
This unique counting book incorporates illustrations to show how diverse families can be, both in race and structure. Each page shows how families can be different sizes, have one or two parents, be one race or multiracial, and can include siblings, grandparents, and more. The illustrations would also open up discussion possibilities about what families do together and what life is like in an urban setting.
While the text doesn’t specifically address different cultures, the illustrations represent a broad range of races, religions, and families, which would ensure that nearly every child would see themselves or their families portrayed (Boyd, Causey, & Calda, 2015). One Family would also provide opportunities to discuss race and differences, as recommended by Chaudhri and Teale (2013).

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

One doesn't have to be the loneliest number in the world as this counting book, going from one to ten shows. Families come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and configurations, and the colorful illustrations allow readers to realize just how diverse families can be while having the chance to count the objects on the page. For instance, there are four buildings on the pages with two children in a car and what looks to be two grandparents with a basket of four puppies and four keys on a keyring. Together they make one--"one family" (unpaged), as the text keeps repeating. The end of the book features each of those numbers and an opportunity to count the objects again. I enjoyed the poetic text and the diversity presented on the pages. This title is perfect for sharing with children to remind them that families are not all the same.

[Kristi Betts · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Shannon's ONE FAMILY helps the reader to see even though the number one is usually used to represent a single item, it can also tell about a collection of things. Each page shows a comforting scene of a family with text telling how one is represented - "One is three. One house of bears. One bowl of pears". I love the diversity of the families in the drawings by Spanish illustrator Blanca Gomez. One family is presented on each pages starting with a single woman reading a book to a family of ten spending time together in the kitchen. I would recommend this book for early childhood and elementary libraries. I believe this book would be beneficial for gifted and talented classes to think of ways they could create their own book in a similar fashion using a different number pattern, or even changing the subject from one family to something else that represents multiples.