The House on the Hill

The House on the Hill

Christin Couture 1991

Christin Couture once again taps into childrens' natural curiosity and desire to discover the world around them.  Our other book of hers was about a band of kids delving into nature.  This one is about an empty old house on the hill just begging to be explored.

This could easily be a spooky story, but instead there's a sweetness to how the children wander through the rooms, marveling and enjoying each space.  My grandma in upstate New York told me that when she was a little girl there was an abandoned house (the old woman who lived there had died and the house sat empty but still furnished with all of her things).  My grandma would often go there to play and have tea parties with the dishes, always cleaning up and putting things away afterwards.  What a dream to find a place like this as a kid!

The insides of houses and rooms are some of my favorite illustrations and these are done beautifully (I actually thought they were Barbara Cooney at first glance)!

Find more books about houses here!

Changes

Changes

Anthony Browne

1996

 A unique approach to the story of a new baby in the family.  Anthony Browne uses his surrealist pictures to capture the curiosity and confusion and abstract wonder of the new change that Joseph's father says is coming to their house.

Amelia's Fantastic Flight

Amelia's Fantastic Flight

Rose Bursik 1992

 The time has come to sort through and cull our book collection.  It's proving harder than I thought as each book triggers memories!  It's almost like going back in time and reliving when my kids were little.  Even books (like this one) that really aren't exceptional story or picture-wise take me back to when the kids were small and we read aloud a LOT.

When Madeleine and Henry were toddlers I belonged to a book subscription club and it really started off our collection (along with some of my own childhood books).  If I remember correctly this book came from there and was a popular one with Madeleine and Henry.  The text is short and filled with alliteration, but what they liked was following the trail of the airplane on the maps.  This will go in the bin for the yard sale on Saturday and hopefully new little readers will get their hands on it!

Amelia builds herself a plane to fly around the world and be home just in time for dinner.  Everything about this book is pure 1990's!

John Tabor's Ride

 I found this recently at a flea and was quite smitten!  Sea stories and accompanying folklore always draw me in.  Blair Lent's illustrations (woodcuts?  linocuts?) feel old fashioned but mesmerizing.  

John Tabor's Ride

Blair Lent 1966

John Tabor has been shipwrecked when along comes the most curious character, a man who looks a hundred years old wearing a "greasy wool sweater and a pair of tarred and tattered trousers."  No sooner does he catch a whale than he takes John Tabor on a ride around the world back to his home in Nantucket.  This is just the sort of old magical sea chanty kind of book that we would spend Summer afternoons reading.

Terry and the Caterpillars

Terry and the Caterpillars

Millicent E. Selsam

pictures by Arnold Lobel 1962

Since this is the time of year for caterpillar hunting and butterflies, here's an early reader combining a story and nature facts illustrated by one of our favorites, Arnold Lobel.

Terry is my kind of girl, curious and loving insects!  Even better are her parents who encourage her to keep her caterpillars, finding out how to care for them from the library, calling the museum with a question, and even waking Terry up in the middle of the night so she can watch one emerge from its cocoon.

"I wonder," she said.  "I really wonder how this can happen."  

"Things can change when they grow," said her mother.  "You change when you grow, too."

Days of the Blackbird

Beloved illustrator Tomie dePaola retells and embellishes this northern Italian tale.  Per the author's note the story stems from a real Italian mountain village (which dePaola depicts on the title page) where the last three days of January are the coldest of the year.  As the story goes, the doves would roost in the chimneys to keep warm and this turned them black.  DePaola's retelling also takes some inspiration from The Emperor and the Nightingale. 

Days of the Blackbird

Tomie dePaola 2005