Old Blue Is My Home

Drawing, per an author’s note, on childhood experiences, Judge (Wake Up, Moon!) narrates this picture book via the voice of a child whose family lives in a van called Old Blue. Loosely stroked watercolor and colored pencil spreads show Old Blue chugging uphill in a town, then threading along a mountain road. At night, the pale-skinned family eats soup under the stars, then sleeps snuggled up in the van’s back, belongings hanging in nets above. “Old Blue is my home,” but there are times when the arrangement “makes me feel like I’m from everywhere and belong nowhere.” At school, children sometimes point and laugh at the vehicle and narrator, and though schoolmates invite each other over, “No one wants to play in Old Blue.” A sensitive parent offers cuddles until the world again feels that it has “a place for me too.” Making it easy to feel what the child feels, this nuanced work honors the hope of one day having a “forever home” alongside the way Old Blue “gives us shelter and keeps us safe”—and knits the family close. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. A note about housing insecurity concludes. Ages 4–8. (Apr.)