THE GREAT BLUE HOUSE

With their signature simplicity and gentle insight, this accomplished picture-book team lyrically presents the life cycle of a house in nature. When the summer days grow short, the children pack their suitcases and the people leave the great blue house and seal it up tight. It’s then that other life forms take up residence as a mouse nibbles in a corner, a spider spins a web, a bird settles in a rafter and a stray cat curls up in the empty woodbox. As snow falls, they tuck themselves into their spaces. When rain wakes up the garden and spring returns to the blue house, so does the family, to the new sounds of kittens meowing, young birds chirping and a new baby crying. Hallensleben’s saturated Van Gogh–like colors visualize this quiet reverie and testament to the joyful recurrence of life and the rhythm of the seasons. (Picture book. 4-8)