When the Relatives Came is a caldecott honor book. It also one of her earlier books, publishedin 1985. This book is very adorable. It describes an old fashioned family reunion and how special family is even if you only get to see them once a year.
Rylant uses a lto fo different illistrators in her books. In fact, she doens't have too many books that have the same illistrator. In this book, I did not like the faces of the people. They were almost ugly in my opinion. It sort of ruined it for me because I was distracted by it. I liked the background images and the objects but I did have a real problem with the people.
This book doesn't give you a warm fuzzt feeling about seeing your fmaily though. Rylant describes the ugly broken down car they come in and even though it gross, it means it's their family. Every family has thier own traditions and I think that was evident in this book. It makes you think about the things that you do when you see your family. I remember going to my grandma's house in Wisconsin and sleeping over. She only has one extra room so my brother and I would share a bed. When my sister came along she got to sleep in our room too, in a crib. I was reminded by this when she described the funny sleeping arrangements hey had. Each house has its different sounds like the breathing described in the book. Overall, this book just really makes you feel good inside and out.