Going Home with Dad

PreS-Gr 1–Two mice, a father and child, get dressed and head outside for a walk. Along the way, they encounter beetles, honeybees, and snails on the move and wonder whether the little creatures are going home. This leads them to muse about the destinations of inanimate objects—leaves swirling on the wind, a stick floating downriver. Howe keeps the text intentionally spare, filled with simple questions and imaginative answers. A lost scarf isn’t really lost—it’s simply gone home. Where do hot air balloons call home? Why, the sky, of course. The one time the father briefly expounds on the nature of ­going home (observing that all movement is ­effectively ­toward home if that’s where you end up), the little one leaps off a wall into his arms and replies, “Can we get ice cream?” Small ­moments like this perfectly capture the tone of authentic parent-child conversation, at once playful and philosophical. Howe’s digital art sets these interchanges in a warm, gentle environment of forests, fields, and rivers, with pale pastel skies above and rich, earthy green landscape below. Vertical and horizontal panel sequences frame the action in soft borders, while full-bleed illustrations reveal the world in joyous expanse.