WHEN WE GET HOME

A common belief of childhood—that the moon is following a child—is part of the narrator’s ponderings during a night ride home. The narrator and her mother have helped a grandmother move; on the journey home the child rehearses her familiar bedtime routines in her mind: finding her father asleep on the couch in front of the TV, brushing her teeth, putting on pajamas, closing the curtains, and getting tucked in. The car is shown in snapshots, crossing bridges, rounding bends, and turning off exits, until its headlights shine a heart-shaped beam on the girl’s own house. Opposite those scenes are full-color pictures of the bedtime rituals, rendered in clean, unbroken pen-and-ink lines and washed in warm colors. The unswerving text, set in dark gray against a light gray background, conveys a sense of hush in simple declarative sentences and quietly celebrates the safety and comfort of home and family. (Picture book. 2-4)