Ants have a colony. Bats have a cloud. Chickens have peeps, where they can get loud. All the way from A to Z, this colorful alphabet primer celebrates all kinds of diverse families, giving each animal family a name. With dolphins and their pods, iguanas and their messes, and kitties and their litters, it’s easy to learn about what makes a family . . . well, a family! Packaged as a well-crafted, sturdy, padded board book, it will stand up to years of exploration. Whether you are teaching the alphabet, animals, different types of families, or celebrating your own unique family, What is a Family is a colorful and fun introduction to the families all around us. Families are groups that take care of their own. They all stick together to help make a home.

All the moving, changing shapes of a family are shown in Edith Schaeffer's imaginative reflections on infancy to grandmotherhood. She gives readers great ideas on how to support their family members and make moments memorable.

What Is a Family? explores the histories of diverse households during the Tokugawa period in Japan (1603–1868). The households studied here differ in locale and in status—from samurai to outcaste, peasant to merchant—but what unites them is life within the social order of the Tokugawa shogunate. The circumstances and choices that made one household unlike another were framed, then as now, by prevailing laws, norms, and controls on resources. These factors led the majority to form stem families, which are a focus of this volume. The essays in this book draw on rich sources—population registers, legal documents, personal archives, and popular literature—to combine accounts of collective practices (such as the adoption of heirs) with intimate portraits of individual actors (such as a murderous wife). They highlight the variety and adaptability of households that, while shaped by a shared social order, do not conform to any stereotypical version of a Japanese family. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

Represents a variety of families, some big and some small, some with only one parent and some with two moms or dads, some quiet and some noisy, but all alike in some ways and special no matter what.

Family is where the heart is. Even though all families are different, home is where your loved ones are!