These links show the original reading lists. Inclusion is not a guarantee of suitability for your child.
Todd Parr - Author
A bright, direct introduction to adoption and family belonging, using repeated language and diverse family images. Its emotional centre is welcome, but its one-sided account of need may not fit every family’s experience.
adoptionfamily formationbelongingneedcareadoptive family relationshipsdifferent familiescultural diversityinclusion
FictionPicture book
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Themes in Context
Adoption and belonging
The book presents adoption as people choosing to come together, sharing a home and heart, and making a family that belongs together.FavourableFavourable: the book presents this theme approvingly or positively.Favourable: the book presents this theme approvingly or positively.
How the book presents it: Family belonging and diverse ways of making a family are warmly affirmed through direct, reassuring language.
Talk about: How might the idea of belonging connect with different children’s understandings of family?
Need, provision and reciprocity
The recurring formulation gives the child a need, such as a home, and the family something to provide, such as space or love.MixedMixed: the book presents both supportive and critical signals.Mixed: the book presents both supportive and critical signals.
How the book presents it: The welcome is affectionate, but the one-directional structure can be read as portraying the child as needing rescue and the family as saviour-like.
Talk about: Does the book leave room for the child’s agency and for the family to need and receive love too?
Diversity in families
The illustrations are described as showing single parents, couples of different kinds, people of different colours and animals, alongside children.FavourableFavourable: the book presents this theme approvingly or positively.Favourable: the book presents this theme approvingly or positively.
How the book presents it: Visual diversity and acceptance are presented positively as part of the book’s welcoming family message.
Talk about: Which kinds of family difference are visible, and which kinds might your child still want represented?
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Why It May Be Worth Reading
It can open a gentle conversation about the many ways families form and about love, home and belonging. Read it critically if you want adoption represented as reciprocal rather than rescue.
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What Deserves Attention
Notice whether the child is positioned mainly as someone receiving a home, love or other provision. Some readers may find this implies rescue or indebtedness rather than recognising love and need on both sides.
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A Conversation Worth Having
How might your child respond to the book’s suggestion that an adopted child needed what the family had to offer? What other reasons might people come together as a family?
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Reading Approach
Share the book slowly, pausing to name the welcoming message and ask what feels fair or incomplete. Add your family’s own language about mutual love, identity and belonging.
Confidence & Basis
Theme indicators describe how the book presents a topic; they are not a verdict on the whole book or your family's values. Confidence reflects how much book-specific material was checked. Only part of the book information was available, so some details remain unconfirmed.
What remains unconfirmed
Adoption and belonging: The book does not explain individual adoption circumstances, birth-family relationships or why adoption may occur.
Need, provision and reciprocity: Some details of this treatment remain unclear.
Diversity in families: Some details of this treatment remain unclear.
Suitabook