Inspiring Young Readers

posted on 11 Oct 2026

Funcles by Yashika Mody and Adriena Fong

When I was lecturing in issues relating to Children and Families, one of the exercises I liked to get students involved in required them to put themselves at the centre of a circle and then think about where members of their family would be placed – the most important nearest their centre and others further out depending on how they felt about them. The result was a kind of solar-system model of a family orbiting the student at the centre. This exercise always resulted in a lively discussion about who could be considered ‘family’ – so many unrelated ‘uncles and aunts’, friends so close they were ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ and that didn’t include those deceased family members whose influence still continued or the family pets!

That’s exactly the issues that Yashika Mody and Adriena Fong tackle in their colourful and affectionate picture book for younger readers, Funcles. Mrs Forrest, the class teacher gives her young pupils a family tree worksheet to fill in. For one young boy the worksheet looks much too small:

“ ‘I need more than one,’ I say.

‘Do you have a big family?’ asks Mrs Forrest.

‘HUGE,’ I reply. ‘I have loads of aunties and a GAZILLION uncles.’”

The young boy starts to tick off his list of uncles – there’s the bus driver uncle, the grocer uncle and uncles who staff the food stall, drive the taxi….you get the picture.

The boy’s family tree drawing just grows and grows and when his parents see what he’s pinned on the wall his parents are puzzled:

“ ‘But Pa and I don’t have brothers!’ exclaims Ma.”

So, there’s some explaining to do for the puzzled youngster:

‘ “In some cultures like ours, we call people who are older than us uncles and aunties…even if we’re not related to them,” explains Pa.”

Suddenly disgruntled and wrong-footed, the boy has to confront the fact that he’s been drawing not uncles but fake FUNCLES.

But, of course, as his dad points out – the ‘f’ in FUNCLES might stand for fun rather than fake. This transforms the whole exercise and now his huge family tree is a story of community and not just family and he discovers that all his friends have big networks of FUNCLES too.

When he presents his family tree in class he finishes by telling them:

“Wait till you see my family tree for my AUNTIES!”

At the end of the book there’s a note from the author, Yashika Mody, telling us that the story comes as a result of her own family background in Singapore – and my students in Birmingham would have been able to share her story and completely understand her experiences.

As always with books from Lantana Publishing, the book is a big, generous size that gives a brilliant showcase to the colourful artwork of Adriena Fong, who was also born and raised in Singapore before moving to the UK.

You will be able to get a copy of FUNCLES from your local independent bookshop, who will be happy to order it for you if it isn’t on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

October 2026