A young girl is tired of her family’s moves. She wants to stay where she is, where she has friends and is settled. Grandma teaches her that it takes time to love a home and make it “homegrown.”

I have mixed feelings about this book after reading it. Although I really like the message of the book and think that it is relatable to what the students may be experiencing, the pictures take away from the message while you are reading it. May people move multiple times throughout their lifetime, and it can be hard to become accustomed to their new house and make it feel like home. I like that the message of this story is that it takes time for a house to feel like home and moving from one house to “better” house is not magically going to make everything better. I like how the book includes how the speaker feels about having to move from one house to another and leaving behind things, such as her swing set and trees that her family planted. However, at points it could be confusing to follow which house was being spoken about and what was taking place within certain houses. I felt as though the illustrations in this book took away from the story at points because it was a lot to look at, which made it overwhelming and hurt my eyes at some points. Some of the pictures were not very clear, which made it hard to tell what was drawn/painted. Overall, I think that the message was good, but there are some changes that could be made to improve the book. ( )

This book is a fantastic read-aloud for kids that have moved/are moving and likely feel a lot of emotions about it. Wong's text is simple, yet thought-provoking and definitely relatable. I wish had read this growing up the several times that I moved. Lewis' illustrations are sublime, life-like, but still fantastical. I definitely recommend for family or one-on-one read-aloud. ( )

In my opinion, this was an okay book. I think it was sort of confusing and hard to follow, but by the end I understand the story plot a lot better! I think it’s the language the author used in the book that made the story so difficult to read. For example, it says “I’m eight years old and I’ve lived in three.” What it needs to say is “I’ve lived in three houses.” On the previous page it talks about her living in three different houses, but it needs to clarify and be descriptive on the following pages. I also think that the writing in general is just challenging to understand and it doesn’t flow very well. During the text, it seems to stay very strait and mono toned. The writing needs to be more exciting and engaging for readers. The illustrations in the book are good though, they are very colorful and detailed. The message the books gives is that moving to many different houses, can be hard but in the end, you’ll find the one that is the perfect fit for you. It’s a very boring book overall and I wouldn’t recommend younger children reading it. ( )

I had mixed feelings about this book. I liked it because I thought it was a cute topic. The topic about making a house into a home was very unique for a children’s book. The audience for this book would be children who have moved a lot. That is one downfall to this book. I do not believe that there is a big enough audience that could relate to this book. If you were not apart of that direct audience the book was not engaging. As I was reading the book, I never was interested in what I was reading. I think this is because the book had a lot of pointless details. The only thing that interested me with this book was the illustrations. Each picture provided a lot of detail. The pictures were painted in a unique way that caught the reader’s eye. Also the pictures connected emotions to the setting. The reader knew exactly how the main character felt at each setting. For example, when the main character was at her grandma’s house she always had a bright smile on her face. This is because she loved her grandma’s house and this was the house that inspired her to make her house a home. When the main character was at her new house she always had a very sad or bored facial expression. She did not start smiling in that house until she made that house more like a home. Once again I thought the topic and theme of this book was interesting. But, I just do not think that the author wrote it effectively. ( )