My House Has Stars

My House Has Stars

From BooklistAges 5^-8. In the framework story, a mother tells her daughter that "night is falling somewhere. And now. And now again. Night is coming to this sky. To houses everywhere. This house. / And there are stars." In the pages that follow, eight children around the world tell about their homes at night: a houseboat in the Philippines, a mud house in Nepal, a group of round huts in Ghana, a Japanese house, an adobe pueblo, a Mongolian yurt, a skyscraper apartment in Brazil, and a house on the Alaskan tundra. Each child, each culture views the night sky and the stars in a slightly different way, yet as the book's point of view pulls back visually in the last pages, it is clear that earth is home to all, and the roof above our heads is the same sky. Catalanotto's impressionistic watercolor paintings capture each culture's individuality yet maintain the same soft-focus view of the world after darkness falls. Although the scenes take place at night, each is full of light: firelight, starlight, moonlight, city lights, the northern lights, and even the light of glowing silkworms. All add to the sense of wonder created by the well-crafted words and art in this purposeful yet impressive picture book. Carolyn PhelanYoung people describe the different kinds of homes they live in around the world and how they see the stars.From Publishers WeeklyMcDonald (Is This a House for Hermit Crab?) turns to geography here, showing vastly different houses from around the world which all have one feature in common: the "roof" of stars that hangs over them. Eight colorful, dense vignettes feature a child describing his or her home ("My house has walls made of sheep's wool and a real door in the front of the tent that squeaks like a crybaby"). The "tour" of each dwelling, be it houseboat, igloo, skyscraper, yurt, etc., concludes with a reference to the stars above; for example, a child in a pueblo says, "I see stars, like tiny handprints, where Coyote scattered the mica dust and stars were born!" Unexplained facts and referents abound, tantalizing readers but also likely to frustrate them: What is a jeepney? Why does the Weaver Princess star go to meet the Ox Boy star? Catalanotto's (Who Came Down That Road?) diffused watercolors show the children in their environments. Facing art, beneath the blocks of text, clues readers into the characters' locations: a hazy map of the world, with the child's homeland circled. The impressionistic style of the pictures suggests as much as it represents. Unfortunately, this approach exacerbates the gaps left in the vignettes. At best this is a lyrical invitation to a scavenger hunt on the reference shelf; otherwise it is essentially a cliff-hanger. Ages 5-8.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.From School Library JournalKindergarten-Grade 4?Children from widely different cultures have one thing in common?all of their homes have a view of the night sky. From the roof of his mud-walled house in Nepal, Akam sees stars; Carmen watches them from her houseboat in the Philippines; Abu sees the night sky from his village in Ghana; Mariko looks out of paper windows from her house in Japan. In an adobe pueblo, Chili can see the stars when he climbs to his flat rooftop; Oyun sees the heavens above her yurt in the Mongolian desert; Sergio goes out on the roof of his Brazilian city skyscraper to see the night sky, and Mattie views the winter night from her igloo in Alaska. The concept of one earth, one sky unfolds in poetic imagery embracing the universality of people everywhere: "Our house, the earth. Our roof, the sky." Full-page watercolor paintings in soft, misty colors reflect the awesome quality of the universe as viewed by youngsters throughout the world.?Sally R. Dow, Ossining Public Library, NYCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Kirkus ReviewsA book that celebrates the uniqueness of each culture and the ties that bind humans together. Readers are introdu