Monday, October 7, 2013

Sometimes Just One is Just Right, by Gayle Byrne (illustrated by Mary Haverfield)

Sometimes Just One Is Just Right
Author: Gayle Byrne
Illustrator: Mary Haverfield
Publisher: Abbeville Press
Publication Date: April 5, 2013
Source: NetGalley
View on Amazon


I got this book specifically with my three-year-old in mind. She's always asking about the possibility of siblings and is positively obsessed with the sight of pregnant women. While I don't know whether she'll have a sibling in the future or not, I was hoping this book would be a good reminder that there are worse things in the world than being an only child. She doesn't have to share her toys, her room or her parents, for instance. She doesn't have to get dragged along to a sibling's extra-curricular activities when she'd rather be at her own. She doesn't have to listen to everyone cooing about how cute the baby is (not that I think she'd mind that).

This book does a good job of making all of these points while still extolling the virtues of different kinds of families. Sometimes it would be nice to have lots of siblings because then there'd always be someone to play with. Dinnertime would always feel like a big party. It wouldn't be as boring and lonely as being an only child sometimes is.

On the other hand, the children from big families sometimes envy the only child, who never has to wait for their turn on the swing or has the privacy and quiet of their own room.

In the end the child in the book concludes, as the title says, that sometimes just one is just right.



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