Personally, I really, really like this book! However, I believe that a lot of references, terms, or ideas will go over kids' heads. A lot of these instances are what makes this book funny. I was laughing out loud while reading this, and it's apparent that the author is very clever and knows comedy. Unfortunately, the audience that this book is intended for will not get these jokes and that makes this book rather dry for young readers. A good example of this is the pentagon ('nuff said). That aspect aside, the main idea of this book is that families all look different, but that doesn't make them any less of a family. I especially liked the last line: "Families come in all shapes and sizes!" This wraps up the book perfectly, and drives the point home. There was a wide variety of families and shapes in this book, which is so important for children to see. This book teaches them about different ways that families can appear, while at the same time showing a multitude of different shapes, both 3D and 2D.

I am not sure the target audience for this book, but there are many nerdy shape related jokes that only adults will understand. I enjoyed the portrayal of many different types of families - foster, blended, separated, adopted, same sex, etc.

It has an attractive book cover and title, therefore I was reading it with high expectation. Unfortunately, this book was not something that a toddler could understand. The confusing content with modern comic illustration which distracted the core idea of the educational move.

Many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for my copy.

Pub date: Apr 22, 2025

I was very excited to read this book as a primary elementary school teacher. I thought that it might be a book about how larger shapes are made up of smaller shapes. Like maybe a hexagon would have a family with two twins that are trapezoids. Sadly, this is not what the book was about. It seemed haphazard on who was part of whose family. There wasn’t really a rhyme or reason as to why one shape was in another shape’s family. There were way too many puns for primary studentsj to understand or find the connection as they are very concrete learners.

Shape Families shows a ton of different shape types and family units, and discusses how being different makes us special. The illustrations are colorful and fun. My kids enjoyed seeing shapes that they hadn't learned about yet. I would probably recommend this for early elementary aged students.

Thanks to Star Bright Books and NetGalley for an eARC of this book for an honest review.

Hmmm… A read that is supposed to be about shapes, but isn't – even with the end-matter scientifically defining each and every one we meet. No, these shapes are in families together, and it's those the book is about, from the one with a divorced dad, where the mother is pregnant, or the one with two mothers, or so on and so forth. And of course the prism's two fathers are different colours. It's a quick read, with speech bubbles from a child shape telling us about his or her family, and it quickly does tell us what it's really about, but it's very easy – and very correct – to say it's better when it's punning and giving us dad jokes about shapes and not being woke and representational on us. What other shape could be full of secrets than the pentagon we meet here, after all? And how we sympathise with the triangle having angle management. This is classily busy with shapes and education about that, delivered with humour – just don't pretend that's the real purpose here.