I Want to Build a Seahouse

I want to build a seahouse
A place that's just for me...

In a lighthouse on the sea lives a young girl who is about to become a big sister. Trouble is, she doesn't want a little sister. With her peaceful life disrupted, the girl's only option is to run away―and build her very own seahouse! With a foghorn for a doorbell and a fence of fishing rope, windows made of sea glass, buoys to help it float ― and a pirate flag for safety (of course), she'll have everything she needs.

The girl imagines all of the adventures she'll have, talking parrot in tow: harvesting seaweed from her garden; telling ghost stories to merfolk; charting the tides and sailing by moonlight. But there's a loneliness that creeps in whenever she thinks of her family back on land. And there's those pesky stormy seas to consider...

A poetic ode to the childhood yearning for freedom, sprinkled with new-sibling jealousy, the debut picture book by editor Whitney Moran, whimsically illustrated with a magnificent coastal palette by award-winning artist Josée Bisaillon, is a heartfelt story of family and independence, and a celebration of imagination and the natural world.

Whitney Moran has always lived by the sea, and never too far away from a lighthouse. She is the managing editor of Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and makes her home in a seahouse in West Dover with her partner and their Old English Sheepdog.

As a young girl, Josée Bisaillon loved drawing cats and houses. She enjoyed school and always returned home full of stories to tell. She pursued her education all the way to university, where she fell in love with illustration. Since then, scissors and brushes in hand, Josée has illustrated more than 40 picture books, including the Marilyn Baillie Award―winning The Snow Knows.