IF YOU LIVE HERE

Two young children dream of real and fantastical places to call home.

“If you live in a tree house…you’ll need to be a good listener,” opens the text. A double-page spread shows a girl with medium brown skin and Afro puffs and a boy with light brown skin and straight hair using headphones to listen to a record player and listening through a tin-can telephone to the chatter of a squirrel. The text goes on to imagine the special things you can do, qualities you must cultivate, or unique experiences you might have in other types of homes, including a spaceship, a train, an animal burrow, a castle, a candy store, a farm, a dollhouse, a nest, and more. The illustrations show the two children transported to each of the different dwelling places (the children are always drawn to scale) and feature repeating abstract and geometric shapes. The artwork is also chock-full of interesting and often tiny details; for example, when the children reside in a submarine, a nearby jellyfish reads a book, and when they live on a spaceship, green aliens dressed in spacesuits float by in outer space. Sometimes the text is amusing, but there are poignant moments: “If you live on a train, you know that everything changes,” and “if you live in a nest, you need to be ready to leave when it’s time.” Although frequently whimsical, this book gently encourages young readers to develop curiosity about domestic experiences outside of idealized and conventional representations.

Subtly philosophical, quietly adventurous, and perfect for bedtime.