Customer Reviews

Home Place

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is told in such a captivating tone by Ms. Dragonwagon and beautifully illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. The story will warm the heart of a "child" at any age. I recommend you read it regularly.

A family wandering in the woods finds an old abandoned home place and wonders who lived there. Gradually, the past and present merge and separate --- the black family who homesteaded, dreamed their own dreams, lived, cooked, did chores comes to life briefly, then recedes. But "They were here... for every year the daffodils come up / to trumpet the good news of spring / forever and forever." With a strong and mysterious sense of time and timelessness, memory and imagination, the author's quietly spare words and the illustrator's sumptous, moving pictures move together seamlessly. I have used this in my class (it is one of the books which can kindle endless discussion and serve as an easy, natural springboard for student writing), read it to my own children countless times, and bought it as a gift for friends of all ages. Anyone who has a "home place" in their past; indeed anyone who wonders about what lasts and what falls away, will respond to this moving, lovely book.

I really found this book interesting and intruiging. A great book to use in a unit on archeology or communities. Very absorbing and different.

I had this book as a child - one of my favs. Arrived as described and quickly!

For anyone of any age who has ever daydreamed about times gone by when walking in the woods or down a back alley of an old town or past a dilapidated house, this book will soothe sad feelings, warm the heart and gift the sunshine of daffodils.

I like the premise of this story. Looking at the remains of a house and thinking about the family that used to live and work there. Two things about this book bothered me - the little boy was named Timmy on one page and Tommy on another page. At the end, the story tells of the honeysuckle vine comvered chimney, but the illustration shows a morning glory vine covered chimney. Little things like this bug me and someone should have caught it before the book was published.

On a wlk one day, a girl and her parents find a field of daffodils. Wondering how they got there, they find a chimney and foundation. They imagine how life would have been in the house. Going back through time, a normal family was living there. Now this place is home to just animals.

This was not one of my favorite books. It took a while to understand what was going on. If your child has a vivid imagination, this is a good book for them. The illustrations are beautiful.