Meet the Family
Age 3+
Family & Home Stories Picture Books
Everyone's family is different, but none more so than this one from the imagination of legendary team John Yeoman and Quentin Blake.
Meet Uncle Marvello and Auntie Shazam: magicians extraordinaire... they can even make your watch disappear. And Cousin Charlie, who cooks up a feast... then eats it all himself. From uncles and cousins to babies and elderly aunts, everyone in this family is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud!
Creators
John Yeoman was for many years Head of English at the French Lycée in London. His collaboration with Quentin Blake began in 1960, and has resulted in a long list of successful children’s books of which a number of earlier well-loved titles are now being republished by Andersen Press for new generations of readers.
Quentin Blake has been drawing ever since he can remember. He taught illustration for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, of which he is an honorary professor. He has won many prizes, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal, and in 1999 he was appointed the first Children’s Laureate. In the 2013 New Year’s Honours List he was knighted for services to illustration.
Reviews
This hilarious romp of a picture book delights in the most wonderful of ways, celebrating the idiosyncrasies and oddities of families. I still have a smile on my face long after closing the book. It’s an irreverent look at many of the possible permutations and combinations of family life, with no judgement. Just gob-smacking joy and hilarity. We literally meet the family anew every couple of pages, and it’s safe to say that all readers of this book will laugh along somehow, someway, with someone in its pages! Colour, size, age, texture, shape – all are intermingled in the fabulous and chaotic professions and obsessions of these characters. Yeoman’s rhyme is fresh and clever, witty, pacy and often with a little mysterious or surprising nuance to throw you off your game just when you think you have a handle on where a situation is heading. Blake’s joyous pen and wash illustrations bring energy, movement, flow and as ever, the contagious sense of humour in each messy stroke and blob of pigment. From balletic mice to floor-scuttling babies to elastic-limbed cousins, the pictures sing and dance with life extraordinaire and joie de vivre. Meet The Family begs to be read out loud and pored over by all the members of your own family, young and old. It’s a gem.
Kids Book Review
This has got a real Dr Seuss and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats feel about it. IThe rhyme is impeccable and oodles of fun. This is a wonderful read aloud full of humour, sure to be enjoyed by children of all ages.
Read Plus
This hilarious picture book introduces young readers to the most outlandish of families, from babies and cousins to elderly aunts, each family member is refreshingly different and undeniably funny. As you can imagine from award winning illustrator Quentin Blake, his amazing illustrations fill each page with expression and movement, framing the family in riotous scenes of mayhem and laughter which young readers can delight in time and time again. A fabulous picture book to share with primary aged children for the pure joy of it and a fantastic title to explore the concept of family and how unique and different people can be, even if they come from the same family.
Reading Time
