Finding Home: Home Is a Window by Stephanie Parsley Ledyard

HOME IS

HELLO, SWEET PEA,
AND A HUG.

Home is a door where someone is waiting with a hug. It's a cozy chair with a sleeping dog and a little bit of green by the window.

It's a long table with a family sharing dinner and drying dishes beside Mom after dinner.

It's a favorite quilt on your bed to cozy under at night, with the light from Ms. Vera's window next door as the nightlight on your wall.

It's a stairway with family pictures hung all the way to the top, things that stay the same, day to day.

But what if... one day all those things go away? What if they are packed up and loaded up, and all you have of home is your pillow in the car and...

... THE SHIRT THAT SMELLS LIKE YOUR OLD ROOM.

AND THEN--
HERE WE ARE.

What makes a house a home? Familiar things, yes, but mostly the family inside. In Stephanie Parsley Ledyard's Home Is a Window (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House, 2019), the cozy quilt becomes the tablecloth for a floor picnic surrounded by boxes, and there's a window with with a plant and Mom and Dad just beyond.

Moving is a common childhood experience, and Ledyard's sweet story of family life reinforces the theme that home is where the heart is, where there's a hug waiting just beyond the door. Pixar artist Chris Sasiki's richly evocative illustrations done in homey faux naif paintings in soft muted colors ease the sense of loss and suggest that the new home will be a happy one, with a window with a little bit of green. Share this one with Deborah Underwood's Bad Bye, Good Bye (see review here)

Stephanie Ledyard is also the author of Pie Is for Sharing.