What a Family!: A Fresh Look at Family Trees (review)

Children who have heard their elders natter on about great aunts, great-great grandfathers, and first cousins once removed can't be blamed for thinking that family trees are just too gnarled and tangled to climb. Isadora tries to make sense of it all in a whirlwind tour of a multigenerational fictional family whose young member, Ollie, ponders how he came to be the shortest kid in his kindergarten class. It seems that Grandpa Max's brother was a pipsqueak too. Ollie's own brother, Angelo, shares his proclivity for hair that sticks straight up, and both boys have large ears that also seem to run in the family. Isadora bounds from branch to branch on the racially mixed tree, comparing physical traits that range from attractive to downright quirky and demonstrating that each person is unique, yet firmly connected. She offers no indication, though, that biology has any role to play in this phenomenon, so her text, however colorfully illustrated in perky if sometimes awkward colored-pencil close-ups, never reaches beyond simple observations. Moreover, genealogical jargon isn't fully explained, and the extensive diagram that could be helpful in sorting through the relatives is relegated to the endpapers, a location both inconvenient and likely doomed to be obscured by Technical Services. This may not be the ultimate key to understanding family trees, but it could just be a great kickoff to the annual family reunion.