Stars: 4 This picture book is both beautiful, buyable and easily used in the middle school classroom as a mentor text.
My Thoughts:
This is an extended metaphor poem by one of my favorite YA authors, Matt De La Peña, on the different manifestations of home. Of course it is not a place. Of course it includes vital people and times and memories. However, what I also loved is that it also includes school and a teacher at the door of a classroom as home. I have met many students over my years who feel like school is their safe place and their home. I continue to remind my teacher candidates that this is a fact, not something made up to explain why it is so important to create a safe, loving space for learning and healing within the classroom, even in secondary. Even in college. The author and illustrator do a superb job of bringing that home for readers.
In the middle school classroom, use this as a mentor text for an extended metaphor writing assignment. Better yet, use this as a skills lesson for essays to show how to continue to roll out an argument.
From the Publishers:
Home is a tired lullaby
and a late-night traffic that mumbles in
through a crack in your curtains.
Home is the faint trumpet of a distant barge
as your grandfather casts his line
from the edge of his houseboat.
With lyrical text and expressive artwork, Matt de la Peña and Loren Long celebrate the beauty and love found in every home, no matter its size. They show how a home is more than just a place . . . People can be a kind of home—a family and a community that cares for one another. And the natural world is another kind of home, a refuge we share with every living thing on Earth.
This deeply moving ode to the universal pull of home, whatever its form, is destined to become a new classic that will be cherished by readers of every age.
and a late-night traffic that mumbles in
through a crack in your curtains.
Home is the faint trumpet of a distant barge
as your grandfather casts his line
from the edge of his houseboat.
With lyrical text and expressive artwork, Matt de la Peña and Loren Long celebrate the beauty and love found in every home, no matter its size. They show how a home is more than just a place . . . People can be a kind of home—a family and a community that cares for one another. And the natural world is another kind of home, a refuge we share with every living thing on Earth.
This deeply moving ode to the universal pull of home, whatever its form, is destined to become a new classic that will be cherished by readers of every age.
Publication Information:
Author: Matt De La Peña
Illustrator: Loren Long
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers (March 11, 2025)
Hardcover: 48 pages
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