  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 01/01/2015 *Starred Review* Home. The word conjures up images of place and pokes at memory. In this arrestingly illustrated book, Ellis presents many types of home, some as contemporary and concrete as a brick apartment building slashed with graffiti, others as fanciful as a shoe covered with cavorting children supervised by a dispirited old woman. The minimal text consists of short identifications of the dwellings: “Some are palaces. Or underground lairs.” Not every home dweller is human. The interior-to-exterior view of a raccoon’s home inside a tree is especially striking. Ellis, in her picture-book debut, draws with simplicity and precision, yet there are often so many fanciful details that second and third looks will come naturally. The oversize buff-colored pages are just the right background for the gouache-and-ink paintings done in a subdued palette and splashed with reds. The whole effect makes the pictures seem like frameable art. This will encourage children to muse on their homes and the homes of others and dream about living one day in a palace—or perhaps a shoe. - Copyright 2015 Booklist. School Library Journal - 06/01/2015 K-Gr 2—The realistic, fanciful, and stereotypical merge in this picture book homage to the place we call home. Gouache-and-ink art featuring warm, earthy colors with splashes or spots of red illustrate the hand-lettered, simple text ("Home is a house in the country. Or home is an apartment." and later, "Sea homes. Bee homes. Hollow tree homes."). Familiar and unfamiliar (Kenya) and sometimes magical (Atlantis) settings inhabited by humans, animals, and mythical beings are included. The illustrations offer much to pore over and connections to be made. The dove that appears on the title page can be found throughout the book and the silhouette in an upstairs window of the house that appears on the first spread, reveals itself to be the hat of a girl on the final pages. The penultimate scene is that of an artist in her home surrounded by items familiar to readers (a weathervane, figure of a house, a ship in a bottle and a globe, and a piece of black-and-white fabric, and a pointed cap). These objects will give observant children pause and send them back to page one to see what other details and images are carried throughout the story. However, the Mideastern lair, the Japanese businessman's geometric home, a wigwam, and a pagoda, may give others pause for different reasons. VERDICT While skillfully rendered and artistically pleasing, this eclectic assortment of domiciles is hardly representational and is less than ideal for classroom usage.—Daryl Grabarek, School Library Journal - Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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