In this first ever audio collection you can discover the story of Mrs Wobble the Waitress, Mr Biff the Boxer, Miss Dirt the Dustman's Daughter and many more of Allan Ahlberg's beloved Happy Families. Many of his books were collaborations with his wife, Janet, an illustrator, and they quickly became one of Britain’s leading author/illustrator teams. I mean, sometimes I see things on social media where somebody gone up to somebody saying “Oh your English is terribly good”, and they've gone a bit beserk, which is what I would have thought when I was younger, but now I say, “Thank you very much - yours is good too. This is not intended to be a full statement of all your rights under the Distance Selling Regulations.

My takeaway has been here since the 1970s: my parents started it up - it's not entirely like the takeaway in the book. Whilst I did enjoy the flashbacks to the 1950s onwards which charted Ah Goong’s arrival in the UK and Joan’s childhood they were all too brief. Julie Ma's descriptions of the Li family relationships are moving and comedic at times, and there's an ooze of charm and relatability to small village life found in the interactions with those around them. Filled with invaluable tools, quick-fire exercises, case studies and additional worksheets, Happy Families has everything you need to protect and support your child's mental health. I’d seen a bit of a buzz about Happy Families by Julie Ma recently, so I picked up a copy from Sainsbury’s.Full details of your rights under the Distance Selling Regulations are available in the UK from your local Citizens' Advice Bureau or your Local Authority's Trading Standards Office.

While much of the small Welsh community was welcoming of Ah Goong and his family, and they certainly enjoyed eating their food, the family did experience some racism.Julie Ma’s writing has a very sincere feeling to it, unaffected and clean, making it very appealing and accessible to all. Whilst the writing was very readable I did feel the humour throughout was tired and I was frustrated that the novel left me with so many unanswered questions. But there is grit here too, with rascism and cruelty to the vulnerable, witnessed by the very likeable main characters at their Chinese takeaway base. I completely fell for Amy Li and her grandfather Ah Goong, who were the real heart of the story for me. But then Ah Goong collapses in the street and time is running out if Amy wants to play happy families before it’s too late.

They’ve fallen out of favour lately - I think it's because belly pork is quite a fatty cut of pork and people are very health conscious.She firmly believes in the ratio of 70% backside-in-the-chair writing time and 30% thinking about writing while walking a dog. My only downfall for this story that it was a little too slow-moving for my liking, as many of the dramatic elements happen in the latter part of the book and I'm a little too impatient for so much context and background building. Happy Families looks at the family and history behind the local Chinese takeaway in a new perspective, by giving them a sense of humanity and exposing their secrets to us - showing that despite having the recipe for delicious food, they don't have the recipe for a perfect happy family. Further to that, the younger generation taking on takeaways may be changing the format that has previously existed. Towards the end my head was just baffled with the different links betweens the families and I couldn't seem to make head or tail of what was happening (I started to zone out at this point as I just wanted to finish the book asap rocky).