Life with lots of children offers excitement. There is a unique energy and enthusiasm that can be unleashed in a tribe with a wide age range and lots of personalities. That’s not to say that large families are always fun and healthy, but they are without fail interesting and dynamic.
Illustrated books that capture some of the dynamism of family life with many children can be hard to find. But there are gems out there! Whether you are part of a large family or not, whether you are young or old, you can enjoy the camaraderie and ebullience of life with many children, ever teetering on the brink of chaos, zestful, and, at its best, filled with hope.
A couple of titles from the past 25 years are charming windows into the world of big families. Diane Goode’s Thanksgiving Is Here! is by no means constrained to the season of the title and offers a timeless look at a family gathering. Mary Ann Hoberman’s The Seven Silly Eaters illustrated by Marla Frazee is a comedic tale of a family of picky eaters who almost unravel their poor mother. Both books have lively illustrations that can be absorbing with or without the narrative, scenes that reveal the characters and relationships of a family with many children.
On the book jacket of Thanksgiving Is Here! Good is quoted as saying, “This story was a joy for me to create. I asked myself, What happens at Thanksgiving? Why, everything! Look closely. When family and friends come together to celebrate, they bring with them comedy, drama, budding romance, old grudges, and new mischief. They meet in the spirit of acceptance and part with a sense of renewed strength. A family is something worth celebrating.”
Through the story of a little girl named Maggie who goes with her parents and brothers to her grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving Day, the book follows the preparations and riotous unfolding of the big meal, the afternoon idylls, and the holiday dessert. The text is sparse and often generic, but the marvelous illustrations tell many engrossing tales of exasperated parents, playful children, a sweet dog of unknown origins, and relationships both developing and strained.
If you ask most American children, they will tell you that Christmas is their favorite holiday. Who could resist unrestrained consumerism in the name of the Christ child? But if you ask adults, many will tell you that Thanksgiving is their favorite. The reason often cited is the joy of gathering and celebrating without required gift-giving, manic preparation, or some of the friction that comes with more complex Holy Days. Of course, now you have people kvetching about how they don’t want to feel obligated to express gratitude, but apart from these miscreants Thanksgiving really is a wonderful day. You could easily replace Thanksgiving in Goode’s book with a family reunion, graduation, birthday party, or wedding. All the elements of a big family gathering would still apply.
As the adult reading the book, make sure to spend some time enjoying the illustrations on their own. You’ll weave your way through some of the comical and charming little stories unfolding beyond the written word.
Where Goode’s story is about special occasions, Hoberman’s story focuses on the daily activities that make up the years of a growing family. Frazee’s deceptively simple illustrations belie a world of details and offers images of a mother with child in many different stages of the early and growing years. Published in 1997, the book looks remarkably like the Millennial hipsters of Instagram building a simple off-grid home and having a child every year. Like Goode’s book, Hoberman’s does not overly romanticize family life. There is a palpable sense of sibling frustrations, parental exhaustion, and the challenges that come from many people getting sick, bickering and living together in a small space.
There is also a great sense of fun. The children are never alone, always able to play together, scheme, and ultimately contribute to the family in important and meaningful ways. As one reviewer wrote, “This talented artist sets the tale in such a cheerfully frenetic, invitingly cluttered household that kids of all culinary leanings will long to move right in, or, at the very least, visit often.” Perhaps that is what is most enticing about many big families: there is a sense of welcome. Having accommodated so many different people simply by the fact of so many people being born into the family, the family home can feel like a place for many beyond the confines of blood relation. Of course, there are those who simply can’t bear the noise of so many people, but even for those, Frazee’s imaginative family home has a quiet nook for the retiring personality to hide in.
The Seven Silly Eaters could be seen as a morality tale for mothers. The heroic Mrs. Peters sets out to be an excellent mother who keeps her children happy at all times. Each year, there is a new baby with a new dietary preference from which he will not stray. After years of laboriously fixing each requested dish, twins bring Mrs. Peters to the brink of sanity. On the eve of her birthday, she loses her temper and goes to bed in defeat.
Disturbed by the pent-up rage of their beloved mother, the children vow to make their own food as a surprise for her. Disaster ensues, but in the magic of fiction, the failure results in a whimsical surprise for the whole family and solution to their endless strife about food. Overcoming the atomization of modern childhood in which each child is catered to in their special preferences, the Peters family finds a way to enjoy food together.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that both of these books about family life feature food so prominently. Family is not only where we are born but also where we receive nourishment. The family table and breaking of proverbial bread transmits physical sustenance, cultural mores, and family togetherness. There are challenges, endless challenges, to a seamless harmony, but for those who struggle valiantly the rewards can be abundant.
As Leo Tolstoy observed in the opening of Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The number of children is not, as our culture would have us believe, an impediment to family happiness. In fact, more children can be the shaping force that challenges the mother or father to become less controlling, less selfish, less distracted. The concert of large family living is undoubtedly in certain respects more difficult than exclusively one- or two-child families. But the music can be so much more grand!
As much as our culture eschews large families, whether for proclaimed environmental reasons or personal preference, a fascination remains. Families with many children attract attention wherever they go, and people still watch them intently on television, if only under the guise of constant mocking and ridicule.
The post-modern aesthetic in books aimed at children (a departure from books worth reading at any age) is often nothing short of dystopian. Browsing recent works, one will likely discover some distorted, lonely little anthropomorphized bear. Over the course of the book, which can often hardly be called a story, the lone child figure wanders around and has isolated experiences of parental affection that is disordered in its intensity. Do not despair amid this childish nonsense devoid of true adults and real innocence. There are good books with joyful illustrations of family life. Start with these two, and don’t waste your time on the trash.
