Celebrating Families

Overview

Celebrating Families is Rosmarie Hausherr's 1997 Scholastic Press book about children and their households. Library and Google Books records describe fourteen young people introducing many kinds of family life, including one- and two-parent households, adopted families, foster families, extended families, and families with a physically challenged parent. The local catalog and LGBTQ-family bibliographies identify a two-mother family within that wider field. The book is important in the collection because it does not isolate same-sex parents as a separate topic. It uses photographs and brief child-centered profiles to place lesbian mothers, adoption, foster care, single parenthood, multiracial family life, and housing insecurity within one classroom-readable social map.^{[1][2][3][4][6]}

Photo Family Survey

The book's form is a photographic survey rather than an invented illustrated story. Public records describe fourteen young people presenting their family lives, and the local record emphasizes the use of photographs of real-looking households. That structure gives the item documentary force for young readers. A child meets several households as actual people with names, routines, and care arrangements, not as abstract categories in an adult definition of family.^[3][2][1]

Same-Sex Parents Within Breadth

The two-mother family appears inside a broad field of representation. The local catalog describes adopted Brazilian daughters with two mothers, while an LGBTQ-family bibliography identifies a lesbian-mother household in the book. That placement is the interpretive point. The book makes same-sex parents visible without making them the only difference a reader notices. It teaches family variety through accumulation: many households, many arrangements, and many ways children describe belonging.^[1][6][7]

Classroom And Social-Studies Use

TeachingBooks classifies the title for preschool through grade four and places it in social studies, while Library Journal describes its tone as matter-of-fact and affirming. That classroom usefulness matters for the collection. Books like this helped adults introduce family diversity before a child had to defend a particular family structure. The photographs and brief descriptions create a shared reading space where comparison can happen without ranking one household as normal and the others as exceptions.^[4][5][8]

Recognition And Selection

The title's award and selection trail gives it a stronger public record than many small family-diversity books. TeachingBooks records both a Jane Addams honor and a CCBC Choices selection, while library and bookseller records preserve its ISBN, publisher, and subject metadata. The item therefore sits between two forms of value: it is a practical classroom book and a documented children's-literature object whose social purpose was recognized beyond the local collection.^[4][2][3]

Timeline

1. 1997PublicationOpen Library and Google Books record Celebrating Families as a 1997 Scholastic Press book by Rosmarie Hausherr.^[2][3]
2. 1997CCBC ChoicesTeachingBooks records the title as a CCBC Choices selection.^[4]
3. 1998Jane Addams honorTeachingBooks records the book as a Jane Addams Children's Book Awards honor title.^[4]
4. Later bibliographiesFamily-diversity afterlifeLGBTQ-family bibliographies and classroom-resource lists continued to identify the book as useful for discussing family diversity.^[6][7][8]

Publication Record

Public records consistently identify the 1997 Scholastic Press edition.

Citation

Celebrating Families. Rosmarie Hausherr. Scholastic Press, 1997. Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families Children's Book Special Collection, Mechanics' Institute. Collection ID: KB-001.

Sources

Cover image from Open Library.

1. Local collection catalog record for Celebrating Families · catalog
2. Open Library ISBN record for Celebrating Families · library
3. Google Books record for Celebrating Families · library
4. TeachingBooks record for Celebrating Families · education
5. Library Journal, Moral and Ethical Concepts · review
6. Bibliography PDF describing Celebrating Families · bibliography
7. Children's books with LGBT parents bibliography · bibliography
8. ERIC resource list including Celebrating Families · education
9. Kinokuniya product record for Celebrating Families · bookseller
10. Kirkus review for Families: A Celebration of Diversity, Commitment, and Love · review
11. Open Library ISBN record for Families: A Celebration of Diversity, Commitment, and Love · library
12. Penguin Random House record for Who's in a Family? · publisher
13. Publishers Weekly review of Who's in a Family? · review
14. Open Library ISBN record for Chag Sameach! · library
15. ERIC report discussing Chag Sameach! · education