The roles network members play in the lives of African-American and Caucasian parents in the U.S. and parents in Sweden, Wales, and Germany are documented and compared in a ground-breaking study of how personal networks evolve and how they affect and are affected by development.

Uncle is a millionaire elephant who has a B.A. and wears a purple dressing gown. He lives in a labyrinth of skyscrapers connected by water chutes, lifts and railways, and littered with oil lakes, walls of sweets and towers of treacle. He and his followers amuse themselves by exploring his home and falling into adventures with its inhabitants, a collection of lunatics, dwarfs and ghosts. Uncle also frequently fights with the inhabitants of neighbouring Badfort, among them the repulsive Jellytussles (a quivering blob) and the cowardly Hitmouse. 'A classic in the great English nonsense tradition' Observer

There are more uncles than there are parents, more nieces and nephews than there are daughters and sons. Now, in The Uncle Book, Cogan has written a charming and instructive guide to handling the joys and responsibilities of being an uncle. Organized in an easy-to-browse format, it includes helpful sections on everything from changing diapers to childproofing your apartment, profiles of celebrity uncles, plus the ins and outs of planning birthday parties, playing Nintendo, and much more. With its wealth of information, insights and expert advice, The Uncle Book will lend support to nervous, new uncles as well as inspire experienced ones, and help to strengthen relationships between children and their uncles everywhere.