Home, Sweet Home

Hopscotching through a series of questions—“So what makes a home a wonderful place?” “What does your roof look like?” “Where do you like to munch your meals?”—Butterfield presents a disparate collection of home-related facts loosely organized by location: roofs, front doors, walls, kitchens, dinner tables, gardens, stairs, bathrooms, and bedrooms. Though this makes room for a multitude of eclectic tidbits (“The town of Sibiu in Romania is famous for having lots of roofs with eyes”), they never cohere into much more than an accounting of facts. Rossiter’s cheery illustrations are populated by a diversity of smiling people around the world, living in architecturally varied structures. As for what makes a house a home, “there is something that makes homes special.... It’s the people we love and share our homes with!” Ages 3–7. (Sept.)