Books like All-of-a-Kind Family
What if errands, treats, quarrels, and family rituals are the stuff of real adventure? These three novels understand, as Sydney Taylor did, that ordinary childhood becomes extraordinary when every family member is vividly loved.
If you liked All-of-a-Kind Family, you’ll love these
Not lookalikes — kindred books. Each one shares something essential with All-of-a-Kind Family, and we tell you exactly what.
The four Melendy children pool their allowances so that each can enjoy one glorious Saturday alone in New York. From that modest idea, Elizabeth Enright creates a succession of adventures charged with independence, anticipation, and sibling curiosity.
Like Taylor, Enright makes city life feel abundant: museums, theaters, buses, strange encounters, and the delicious seriousness of choosing how to spend a little money. The Melendys are affectionate without being sugary and individual without becoming types. First published in 1941, this enduring classic begins a much-loved family series; missing it would mean missing one of children’s literature’s most companionable households.
At five, Betsy meets Tacy, the shy new girl across the street, and the two begin turning their Minnesota neighborhood into a private kingdom. Their pleasures are wonderfully specific—calling on neighbors, dressing up, making stories, and watching the grown-up world from a child’s height.
Readers who treasure Taylor’s ability to preserve the texture of a vanished childhood will find the same magic here. Lovelace based the series on her own turn-of-the-century life, giving its domestic details unusual intimacy and truth. Generations of devoted readers have grown up alongside Betsy; this first, deceptively simple volume is the doorway into that lifelong friendship.
Four sisters arrive at a grand summer estate with their absent-minded botanist father and immediately begin acquiring secrets, loyalties, scrapes, and one another’s unwanted advice. Birdsall’s great achievement is making the sisters’ bond feel both unruly and secure: Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty clash because they are unmistakably different, yet operate with the deep confidence of children who know they belong together.
Winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, The Penderwicks is a modern heir to the generous family novel. It has wit, momentum, and an old-fashioned faith that children’s feelings deserve full weight. Anyone longing to join another noisy, loving sisterhood should not leave the Penderwicks unmet.