Book Description
for A House by Kevin Henkes
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Perfectly spare illustrations in a perfectly square book show the same house, drawn with strong lines and simple shapes, over and over at different times of day and in different seasons. The text continually addresses the child directly: “Where is the window? What shape is it?” “Where is the moon? Does it look like the window?” These questions ask children to apply their knowledge of basic concepts—shapes, colors, numbers, and comparisons. At the very end, a multicolored doll family enters the page and the house, and they appear to be toys, suggesting that all along we have been looking at a toy house. Ingenious in its simplicity and its invitation to young children to enter the story and use their minds, this is a comforting story that children (and their parents) will want to return to again and again. (Ages 1-3)
CCBC Choices 2022. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2022. Used with permission.