Building Our House
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2.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Perfect for the little builders in your life, this warm-hearted and unique picture book is all about “building a house and turning it into a home” (Publishers Weekly), inspired by award-winning author-illustrator Jonathan Bean’s own childhood.
In this can’t-miss book for kids who love tools, trucks, and all things construction-related, readers join a girl and her family as they pack up their old house in town and set out to build a new one in the country. Mom and Dad are going to make the new house themselves, from the ground up, with a helping hand from their lucky kiddos. From empty lot to finished home, every stage of their year-and-a-half-long building project is captured here—page after page brimming with machines, vehicles, and all kinds of house-making activities!
As he imagines it through the eyes of his older sister, Building Our House is Jonathan Bean’s retelling of his own family’s true experience building their home, and includes an author’s note with real-life family photographs.
“Raise the roof for this picture book. It's something special.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Did you love Building Our House? Then pick up a copy of This Is My Home, This Is My School, another autobiographically inspired picture book from Jonathan Bean about the special rhythms and routines of a homeschooling family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Not unlike Dan Yaccarino did in All the Way to America, Bean (At Night) turns family history into something larger, in this case a romantic portrait of the rewards of diligence, teamwork, and a DIY mentality. In a concluding note accompanied by family photos, Bean explains that the story is based on his family's experience of building a farmhouse when he was a toddler. A sense of familial dedication and cohesiveness fills the pages, with narration coming from a character modeled after Bean's older sister. The pale, matte illustrations are a flurry of activity (and filled with the sort of construction details that children adore), as the family equips a trailer to serve as temporary digs, buys lumber, builds a foundation, hosts a frame-raising party, and eventually turns to interior work. Bean's pictures provide a supplementary visual narrative (Mom becomes pregnant, an infant appears), and the father offers suitably dadlike truisms like "The right tool for the right job" throughout. A warm look at the nuts and bolts of building a house and turning it into a home. Ages 3 6.
