Isla’s Family Tree
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley May 13, 2020
Author Katrina McKelvey. Illustrations Prue Pittock.
Distributor: EK Books
ISBN: 9781925820379
Publisher: EK/Exisle Publications
Release Date: April 2020
Website: http://exislepublishing.com
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Isla’s Family Tree is a quirky little story about getting ready for the addition of a new baby in a home where the number one child is the centre of attention.
Isla is not at all sure this new baby is the right thing at all to have in the house, as she feels it or as it turns out they, are going to disrupt life as she has always known it: she is not happy, not happy at all.
Mum and Dad tried everything until one day Mum asks Isla to come and help her create a family tree, one where Grandma and Grandpa are the trunk and all the other people who make up Isla’s family, become the leaves. Isla is given two brand new leaves which she needs to place on their particular limb.
Slowly she begins to understand families are made up of all sorts of people which is fine, until she comes to her branch and decides there is simply no room there for anyone else, let alone twins. That is simply too, too much.
The very real angst of a small child having to make room in their life for another child, has been captured perfectly by Katrina McKelvey and Prue Pittock, in the story of one little girl who is none too happy about her family changing; one little girl with a very fertile imagination and very definite ideas which last until she finally gets to meet the new arrivals, who slowly enchant her with their winsome ways.
Prue Pittock’s illustrations are simple, line style coloured drawings which capture clearly the sense of upset felt by Isla and the many, many ideas she manages to creates to off load this troublesome baby, which turns out to be babies, that are funny, all to real and most enchanting.
Woven into the storyline is the delicately delivered conceptual structure that families are made up of a variety of people and there are no rule as what or who make up a family, twin babies included!