The House That's Your Home

A home-away-home structure follows a little girl from the "house that's [her] home" to school and back, as she engages with her family, pets, and the world around her. Rhythmic text embraces childlike phrasing and captures the happiest parts of childhood's emotional landscape: "A friend is Your Friend / Who stays by your side." Soft gouache and pencil illustrations match the text's depiction of childhood idyll.

In a picture book that feels at once nostalgic and fresh, Lloyd-Jones and Dyer channel the best of contemporary mood pieces (see, for example, Scanlon and Frazee's All the World, rev. 9/09) and the everyday-life books of yesteryear (such as Krauss and Sendak's A Hole Is to Dig, rev. 10/52). A familiar home-away-home structure follows a little girl from the "house that's [her] home" to school and back again, as she engages with her family, pets, and the world all around her (in a refreshing twist, it concludes with the child awakening to a new day instead of drifting off to sleep). Throughout, a soothing, rhythmic text embraces childlike phrasing with lines such as "A bike is Your Bike / That rides you around" and hits just-right notes to capture the happiest parts of childhood's emotional landscape: "A friend is Your Friend / Who stays by your side / And chooses you first / And saves you a place." There are no tears or hardships in sight, and Dyer's soft gouache and pencil illustrations perfectly match the text's depiction of childhood idyll. The graceful hand lettering adds much to the book's pleasing design, and its clear readability will be a boon to adults who will doubtlessly engage in repeated readings with children in their own homes. megan dowd lambert