Trading Places: A New Home by Tania de Regil

Moving from a loved home is hard. Two kids, happy in their homes in their familiar hometowns, get unsettling news.

With the Empire State building and New York skyline visible through his window, a surprised boy looks up from his toys.

Mom and Dad told me that we are moving to Mexico City.

With a golden monument and far, snow-tipped mountains in view, a girl sits in front of her large window with tropical flower all around.

Mama' and Papa' told me that we are moving to New York City.

Both kids wonder if they will find something like the same friendly and familiar places they love in their new homes.

... listening to my favorite song on my way to school...

Both children recall waving to a familiar sidewalk busker (saxophonist and street organ) on their way out in the morning.

... getting something delicious to eat on my way home in the afternoon...

Both think of stopping for a snack at their favorite sidewalk vendors.

In Tania de Regil's A New Home (Candlewick Press, 2019), author-illustrator Tania De Regil ironically shows her characters in their different-but-the-same activities, sharing the big game (baseball and futbol') with the crowd in big stadiums, ice skating and biking in their iconic outdoor places--Central Park and Bosque de Chepultepec, visiting their respective famous museums and negotiating the noisy crossings in Times Square and the Anillo Periferico around Mexico City.

De Regil's engaging side-by-side illustrations, done in bright mixed media (gouache, colored pencil, watercolors) picture some of the famous sights of each city with which the two young travelers will soon become familiar. And in a charming closing illustration, we see the two children smile at each other in the airport as they pass, trading home places in this story of familiar and foreign places and finding a home in a new city. De Regil also adds an appendix of thumbnail illustrations of scenes in both big cities of the famous places that will soon become familiar to both. This is a different book about relocating, one that involves changing countries and climates, a story about places that are different but alike, with all the inevitable but familiar feelings about moving to a new home."De Regil’s reassuring ode to one’s beloved home acknowledges both the flaws and vibrancy of the two places and encourages children to be brave and open-minded about moving," observes Horn Book.