Old House, New House - Hardcover

Author Phillis Gershator lives in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

Illustrator Katherine Potter lives in Katonah, New York.

PreSchool-Grade 1—An unnamed girl and her parents spend the summer in a rustic house beside a cranberry bog. The shaggy-haired, overall-clad girl befriends the neighboring children and the animals on the farm. She spends her days collecting eggs and picking berries. As the season changes and the leaves begin to fall, the child must leave the country house she has grown to love. Her parents explain they cannot spend the winter there "with no heat and no phone." The family drives across the country, "through city and town," "'cross fields and deserts, up mountains and down," at last arriving at a new house where the girl finds a new group of friends. The illustrations drawn in chalk pastels are done in a bright palette but do not particularly expand upon the rhyming text. In this uneven story, Gershator briefly addresses the unsettling feelings experienced by children facing an unwanted move. These emotions are more fully explored in Heather Maisner's We're Moving (Kingfisher, 2004), while Scott Beck's Little House, Little Town (Abrams, 2004) offers a cozier depiction of a family's love for their home.—Linda L. Walkins, Mount Saint Joseph Academy, Brighton, MA
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