Pearl and her Bunch
Momoko Abe
Orchard Books

Pearl is a member of a very large family of grapes so she thinks, but one day a passing child stops and what he says, precipitates a revelation from Mama and Papa Grape. No, Pearl is not a grape, she’s a pea, albeit a much loved one, but what she’s been told makes her feel as if the grapes aren’t her real family; she’s the odd one out. Shock horror!

Off she dashes, tumbling to the floor where she finds Carlos carrot, her best friend who asks her what is wrong. As the two talk, there comes a loud sobbing and it’s coming from a large yellow fruit. Thinking Big Yellow Fruit must be lost, the friends take her to look for her family.

They hunt high and low till there comes a call, “Grace! Grace!” It’s her mama but to Pearl’s surprise Grace does not look like the others in her family.

Carlos then takes Pearl to meet his family and there, thanks to his responses when she’s astonished by their appearance, she reconsiders her ideas about what it means to be part of a family. “You don’t have to look the same … you can just feel it when you’re with family.”

Those were Carlos’s words but now they are ones that she too would endorse, especially when she receives a very special group hug from the Grapes on her return to ‘her bunch.”

Light-hearted in approach yes, but identity and celebrating family, the topics Momoko Abe explores are topics most of us feel deeply about.