DiDonovan

Family Changes: Explaining Divorce to Children was designed to help parents, family members and professionals guide young children through the confusion of divorce. It comes from a clinical psychologist who uses the picture book format to help adults understand how divorce may be explained to the very young, with the help of this book.

A host of animals are used to reach kids ages 4-8 years old, with a young bunny at the forefront as she struggles with her family's changes and embarks on an emotional roller coaster ride in the process of exploring her new circumstances.

Because there's a good amount of text (for a picture book), this is not recommended for new young readers. It's designed with the adult/child read-together experience in mind, and will benefit both audiences with its colorful, full-page animal character drawings (by Polona Lovsin) paired with a series of questions on why Zoey Bunny's parents are getting divorced, what that means, and how she feels about life in general.

Based on the typical emotional turbulence a child feels from separation or divorce, Family Changes receives high recommendation as the first title that adults should turn to in the effort to explain, explore, and support a child's feelings in the matter, concluding with a list of 'process questions' which adults can use to further enhance the story line's overall approach.