Me and My Family Tree
Kindergarten-Grade 3A little girl draws a picture of her family tree, adding her brother, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins as she repeats the phrase, Theyre all part of my family tree. After she completes the project, she asks, can you guess how I came to be? and explains that her grandparents had her mother and aunt, and that her mother and father had her brother and then her. Despite its simple text, this book fails to make the concept clear. The term family tree is not explained, so children never fully understand why the narrator is sticking pictures of her family onto her drawing of a tree. A sudden statement near the end of the book, Think of it! Everyone in the world has a family tree, seems to come out of the blue. Run-of-the-mill illustrations include scenes of relatives engaged in daily activities and pictures that represent the childs drawings of her family tree. One appealing double-page spread of the entire clan at a picnic in a park features a large tree that is sure to make confused young readers ask, Is that the family tree? A disappointing attempt at introductory genealogy.Ginny Gustin, Santa Monica Public Library, CACopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.