57 + 58 //Building Our House - This is My Home, This is My School /Jonathan Bean

Building Our House / Jonathan Bean

• Farrar, Straus and Giroux

• 2013

• In this unique construction book for kids who love tools and trucks, readers join a girl and her family as they pack up their old house in town and set out to build a new one in the country. Mom and Dad are going to make the new house themselves, from the ground up. From empty lot to finished home, every stage of their year-and-a-half-long building project is here. And at every step their lucky kids are watching and getting their hands dirty, in page after page brimming with machines, vehicles, and all kinds of house-making activities! - From Amazon.

• Construction - Homesteading - Family

• The processes shown as Bean's family builds their house from the ground up are so precisely illustrated, I feel as if I could build my own house. It was very inspiring! The seasons passing around the building of the house show how long it took them, but the end with their cozy little family (including the addition of another sibling!) in their finished house is just so rewarding. I love that Bean includes photos of his family in the back matter.

This is My Home, This is My School / Jonathan Bean

• Farrar, Straus and Giroux

• 2015

• Drawing from his own childhood experiences, Jonathan Bean takes the autobiographically inspired family he introduced in Building Our House through the special rhythms and routines of a homeschooling day. For young Jonathan and his sisters, Mom is the teacher and a whole lot more, and Dad is the best substitute any kid could want. From math, science, and field trips to recess, show-and-tell, and art, a school day with this intrepid, inventive family will seem both completely familiar and totally unique. - From Amazon.

• Homeschooling - learning everywhere!

• Reading this back to back with Building Our House is fun because you can recognize the same cast of characters and the house they built- though now very lived in! The illustration style of this installment in Bean's family history in picture books is a little more child like and messy - but I think that reflects both the child's voice of the narrator, AND the nature of a busy farm homeschool life! I loved this book because of its excellent representation of a homeschooling family (like my own family!) right down to dad the "substitute teacher" and the trips to the library in the school van! Bean again includes photos of his family to connect the reader to his life!