My House Has Stars

Yes, I am a sucker for books with multi-cultural themes. This one is particularly poetic, opening with a quote from Dante.  “And so we came forth and once again beheld the stars.”  I’m not especially fond of the illustrations, but their soft watercolor style fits the lyrical text.

My House Has Stars

Megan McDonald 1996

paintings by Peter Catalonotto

A mother puts her daughter to bed telling her, “Night is falling somewhere. And now. And now again. Night is coming to this sky. To houses everywhere. This house.  And there are stars.”

  

Then around the world a child describes their house and their home and a bit of their life, all tied together by the stars they see in their sky.  From Alaska to Brazil, to Ghana, and Mongolia children look up to the sky and say, “My house has stars.”

I see snow high on the mountains and dream of summer in the tent.  Above the jagged mountaintops, I see a sky full of stars.  I wish on a star.  I wish that someday I will see a tree.

Upstairs in my house we grow silkworms.  They glow pale and silvery in the moonlight.  I tiptoe across the tatami to look out at the moon, the stars.  It gives me the feeling of quiet.