Families of Calabi--Yau threefolds without maximal unipotent monodromy

We will construct families of Calabi--Yau threefolds as quotients of products of three curves by certain automorphisms.
The variation of the Hodge structure of each of these families of Calabi-Yau is determined by the variation of the Hodge structure of one of these curves. As a consequence we obtain that these families have no boundary points with maximal unipotent monodromy. In particular, for the one dimensional families constructed, we can explicitly give the Picard Fuchs equations.