Where would we be without families, to lift us up and love us, to make us who we are? This anthology celebrates all of the humour and warmth, the strength and joy, that families bring us.

We meet a doting grandfather who makes a car out of sand for his granddaughter on the beach, spend time at a ghostly Christmas family gathering, even hear of a little girl who keeps playing the video of a sister’s birth on rewind. Elsewhere, writers reflect on the way family links us across history:

"I want to enter the picture, slip myself

into 1903, climb into the dresses and sit on the porch,

become each woman, touch the baby,

find the unborn daughter I will be."

- from ‘Generation’ by Cathy Stern

This charming, moving selection of poems explores the many things that ‘family’ can mean, in lines which, like families, offer us cuddles and giggles, personality and love.

Poems by Fleur Adcock, Jeanette Burton, Jonathan Edwards, Jackie Kay, Vanessa Lampert, John McCullough, Sinéad Morrissey, Cathy Stern, RS Thomas and Marvin Thompson.

Cover illustration by Sophie Bass.