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Reviewed by:
  • This Is Our House by Hyewon Yum
  • Hope Morrison
Yum, Hyewon . This Is Our House; written and illus. by Hyewon Yum. Foster/Farrar, 2013. [40p]. ISBN 978-0-374-37487-7 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad 4-7 yrs.

Yum's latest picture book recalls events in the life of a family over several generations. Told from the perspective of a young girl, the story starts with "This is the house where my grandparents arrived from far away with just two suitcases in hand," then follows the family's lifeline in the house, as children are born and raised, sibling relationships are tried and tested, a daughter (the speaker's mother) goes to college and returns with a fiancé, and a new baby (the speaker herself) is born. The story itself is light on plot, no more than an extended reflection, albeit one told in a bright and chipper voice. The pencil and watercolor art provides some additional interest, contrasting family photographs with vivid as-it-happens illustrations of the same event. The narrative and the illustrations, which are set entirely in front of or within the same two-story brick home on a city street, have an appealing and gentle domesticity. The watercolors, like the story, are muted and understated, and while the portraiture is occasionally stiff, the figures in general move organically through the detailed scenes and through time. Depictions of different seasons further detail the passage of time through the narrative. This would lend itself to a community unit in the early grades, as it reminds an itinerant generation of what it means to belong to a single space through multiple generations.

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