We Are Family - Six Kids and a Super-Dad

LoveReading4Kids Says

June 2024 Debut of the Month

Home is ‘the place where, when you have to go there/They have to take you in’ in Robert Frost’s famous poem; Oliver Sykes uses poems to create a very different sense of home in this debut collection, a vibrant, warts and all description of his own childhood experiences.

After his mum left the family when Oliver was 8, his dad had sole responsibility for looking after their six kids. It was tough, and they didn’t have much money – the first poem explains how Dad went poaching rabbits and trout to get them through the weeks until the first benefit cheque arrived, the kids all helping in whatever way they could.

In sections titled Meet the Family, Dad’s Most Dangerous Dishes, Savage Siblings and Priceless Pranks, we live the life that Oliver lived, the scrapping and arguing, the days out, the games, and the precious moments when it was just him and his dad, one particularly powerful poem describing going boxing, just the two of them.

There’s a wonderful sense of the helter-skelter of life with so many brothers and sisters but just as clear is the sense of family love and togetherness. Ian Morris’s black and white illustrations catch the moments of quiet as well as the noise.

Andrea Reece

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