What is a family? Once, it was said to be a father, mother, boy, girl, cat and dog living in a house with a garden. But as times have changed, families have changed too, and now there are almost as many kinds of families as colours of the rainbow - from a mum and dad or single parent to two mums or two dads, from a mixed-race family to children with different mums and dads, to families with a disabled member. Mary Hoffman takes a look through children's eyes at the wide varieties of family life: from homes, food, ways of celebrating, schools and holidays to getting around, jobs and housework, from extended families, languages and hobbies to pets and family trees - and she concludes that, for most people, their own family is the best one of all! With Ros Asquith's delightful pictures, this book takes a fresh, optimistic look at families of today.

MARY HOFFMAN is the internationally acclaimed author of over 100 books for children, ranging from picture books to teenage fiction. Her first picture book for Frances Lincoln, Amazing Grace, has become a classic which, with its sequels in the series, has sold 1.5 million copies worldwide. Mary’s other picture books for Frances Lincoln include The Colour of Home with Karin Littlewood and An Angel Just Like Me with Cornelius van Wright, as well as the hugely successful The Great Big Book of Families, The Great Big Book of Feelings, and Welcome to the Family, all with Ros Asquith. Their next title together will be The Great Big Body Book. Mary Hoffman lives in Oxfordshire. For more information about her books visit her website: www.maryhoffman.co.uk

ROS ASQUITH has been a Guardian cartoonist for 20 years, and has written and illustrated over 70 books for young people, including the bestseller The Great Big Book of Families, with Mary Hoffman, the Teenage Worrier series, Letters from an Alien Schoolboy-which was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize- and her debut picture story book It’s Not Fairy. Ros lives in north London with her husband and two sons. For more information about Ros, visit her website: www.rosasquith.co.uk