From School Library Journal:
PreSchool-Grade 2?This story opens with a grandmother rocking a child in the present day, explaining that "Your great-great-great-great grandpa built this house." At the bottom of the page, readers see a man felling a tree. Each spread employs a different design in order to highlight the main action while also portraying related details. The latter are found in a variety of insets and borders. Unity is achieved through the symmetry of facing pages; the presence of the grandmother and grandchild, whose conversation frames the story; and through the even pacing of each generation's entrance. In tracing a home's history from 1810 to the present, the narrative depicts various processes, from building a log cabin to planting corn. Also, it portrays slices of life throughout the generations?sleeping on a cornstalk mattress, eating hamburgers at a drive-in. Most importantly, it reveals the stability and continuity that is possible through family ties, even while the outside world is changing. The text is brief, but poetic?a fitting accompaniment to the rhythm of life presented in the earth-toned watercolors. Due to the amount of visual detail on each page, Homeplace is best suited for one-on-one sharing. Perfect for grandma's lap!?Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Publishers Weekly:
"Your great-great-great-great-grandpa built this house," explains a woman to her granddaughter at the opening of this rich pictorial history of a home that six generations of a family have inhabited. Shelby's gentle, comfortingly repetitive text recounts how the dwelling, which began as a log cabin, was enlarged over the years as men cleared more land and planted additional crops while their wives baked bread, spun wool, stitched quilts and rocked babies. The customs and domestic details of each era-from 1810 to 1995-are portrayed impeccably in Halperin's (Hunting the White Cow) wondrously busy watercolor-and-pencil art, deftly balanced arrangements of landscapes, interior scenes, closely focused insets, sequential panels and borders. Showing newfangled inventions (train, car, TV, computer) alongside cherished heirlooms (cradle, quilt, pottery crock, doll), Halperin, like Shelby, presents a heartwarming picture of simultaneous continuity and change. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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