Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Moving House, sweet picture book about a house that lobbies to keep its family from moving out

Cory Doctorow at 6:02 am Wed, Nov 30, 2011

Tweet
Kindle

Mark Siegel's Moving House is a picture book about a house that decides to keep its family from moving away by aggressively lobbying the children. The night before Joey and Chloe's family are to leave their house at Number Seven Carriage Street in Foggytown, they reminisce about all the things they love about their dear old home. The house stirs itself, stretches its legs, sprouts arms, and carries the kids up to a hilltop to show them that life in Foggytown needn't be so foggy. The kids, the house, the other buildings and the streetlamps conspire together to rescue Foggytown from its fog, and they move the whole place up to the top of a hill, and the house and the family are saved.

You may know Siegel's work from his wonderful Sailor Twain comics, and while there are some illustrations in Moving House that are very Twain-y, much of this is more straightforward, character-driven, kid-friendly illos (the house sauntering out of town with the kids in its hand is especially sweet). The writing is funny and charming, and the story is just weird enough, with a very satisfying and sentimental conclusion. It's a lot of fun to read aloud, and it's a great way to spark conversations about all the places in your home that are special to you and your kid(s).

Moving House






I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  art • Book • Comics • happy mutants • Kids • review • Reviews

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

  • redcell23

    The house looks like a rip-off of Mark Beyer’s amazing Thomas and Nardo animations for Liquid Television. Here is a short example: http://youtu.be/uVcLIxsNq5c