Home

Ellis’s quiet, folk-naif exploration of the idea of “home” may invite comparison to Hoberman’s A House Is a House for Me, but hers is a different journey. She starts in the real world—“Home is a house in the country. Or home is an apartment”—but drifts into memory and fantasy. A long-ago schoolbook might have been the source for the explorer’s ship greeted by Native Americans: “Some homes are boats. Some homes are wigwams.” Storybook scenes abound—a Mughal palace, a thieves’ lair, a sunken Atlantian ruin. A tiny Russian kitchen crowded with dishes bears the legend, “A babushka lives here.” On the facing page is a living room with craters and a familiar-looking planet out the window: “A Moonian lives here.” The final pages show Ellis (Stagecoach Sal) in her studio, at work on the painting that opens the book. “An artist lives here,” she writes, revealing a secret. “This is my home, and this is me.” It’s a work that confers classic gifts: time to look and time to wonder. “Where is your home?” she asks. “Where are you?” Ages 4–8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Feb.)