Home by Alex T Smith
| Home by Alex T Smith | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Jo Heffer
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| Summary: Four good friends happily share a house together until they all decide they want different things out of life. As they cannot agree, they decide to go their separate ways, each taking a part of the house with them. It's not long though before they start to realise that the house is only a home when they are all together. Can they rebuild it and start all over again? | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 32 | Date: January 2009 |
| Publisher: Scholastic | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1407105406 | |
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Home is a lovely heartwarming book that is wonderful to share with young children. It is about four best friends, named One, Two, Three and Four, who all share a home together and are extremely happy until they have ideas about what should happen next.
The problem is that they start to get restless but they all want to go off in different directions. One wants them to go off to sea to become pirates. Two would prefer that they lived at the top of a mountain and learned to yodel. However, Three would choose to live underground in a cave collecting creepy-crawlies whereas Four wants them to live in the City where they can party all night.
As you can imagine, they start to argue so badly that eventually they all go their separate ways, each taking a part of the house with them. One takes the door, Two takes the walls, Three takes the windows and Four takes the floor. Only the roof is left! Even though each friend follows the path they wanted, they are not at all happy and soon realise that their house is simply not a home when it is either only a door, windows, walls or a floor. Before long they are making their way back to each other and putting their house back together. However, this time there is one small difference as they build it on wheels so that they can all go wherever they want to. So that's not going to cause any arguments any more or is it?
This story is told beautifully through both the words and pictures. It's a captivating story with a very important message that is worth sharing with young children. I don't always read the blurb on the back cover with my daughter but there are a lovely couple of lines on this one which really signals what this book is all about:
A house is made of boards and beams
A home is made of love and dreams
I shared this story with my three-year-old daughter and she loved it. She had a lot to say about the story and about how silly she thought the friends were when they were all leaving with bits of the house. She also liked the way the four friends were described at different stages in the story. First, we are told they are 'best friends'. Later on in the story, they are described as 'not-at-all best friends' but in the end they have become 'best-again friends'. My daughter really seemed to identify with this terminology.
The illustrations really enhance the story and there is a lot of amusing detail. Each time we look at the book we seem to spot something different. You really do have to pay attention to the pictures in this book though because at times they are used to tell the story in place of the text.
Alex T Smith is better known as an illustrator and 'Home' is the first book he has written and illustrated. It is very impressive and I shall definitely keep an eye out for more of his work.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. We also have a review of Primrose by Alex T Smith.
If this story appeals to you, you may also want to take a look at Charlie is My Darling by Malachy Doyle and Stephen Lambert which is a different story about a very touching friendship.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Home by Alex T Smith at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Home by Alex T Smith at Amazon.com.
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