The House

Title: The House
Author: J. Patrick Lewis
Illustrator: Roberto Innocenti
Publisher: Creative Editions, 2009
Genre: Picture Book, Poetry
Age Range:2nd and up

Summary and Response:

This is the "House of twenty thousand tales...." Built in 1656, this house has seen it all-marriage, birth, death, and even war. It has been deserted and remclaimed over the centuries of it's life. The book begins with the story of the house in 1900. In the century that the book covers, the house bears witness to many, many events and goes through some major changes.

Although the text seems on the surface to be simplistic, Lewis' quatrains have a depth and complexity that the oldest of readers will appreciate. The book is written from the perspecitive of the house, which I feel gives it a very unique perspective that is suprisingly poignant.

Innocent's illustrations are (as usual) fantastic. The illustrations that he has created for this book have the feel of a classic painting, and are oh so detailed. You can literally spend an hour peering into one of his double page spreads and still not notice everything. Innocenti includes a small illustration that correpsonds with the text on the opposite page, and follows each quatrain with the amazing double page spreads that I have just mentioned.

It was fascinating to notice not only the changes to the house through the century, but also the changes of the house's inhabitants as well.

Teaching Ideas:

This book is an example of high quality and complex poetry that would be an excellent example for both the teaching of poetry (especially quatrains or I-poetry) and also perspective and voice.

Check out Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast for another excellent review of this book.