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Topic: Houses & Homes

Iggy Peck, Architect

Chapter book

A hilarious, irreverent book about doing your own thing Meet Iggy Peck-creative, independent, and not afraid to express himself! In the spirit of David Shannon’s No, David and Rosemary Wells’s Noisy Nora, Iggy Peck will delight readers looking for irreverent, inspired fun. Iggy has one passion: building. His parents are proud of his fabulous creations, though they’re sometimes surprised by his materials-who could forget the tower he built of dirty diapers? When his second-grade teacher declares her dislike of architecture, Iggy faces a challenge. He loves building too much to give it up! With Andrea Beaty’s irresistible rhyming text and David Roberts’s puckish illustrations, this book will charm creative kids everywhere, and amuse their sometimes bewildered parents.

On the Construction Site: A Shine-a-Light Book

Picturebook

Watch a skyscraper spring up with this beautifully illustrated interactive book! By simply holding the book up to the light, or shining a light behind each page, young readers will be able to discover how large buildings are constructed, who builds them, and all about the amazing machines they use in the process.

The innovative see-through feature fulfils a similar function to lift-the-flaps books, but has the added interactive dimension of the child being able to see both the surface and the hidden picture at the same time.

Belonging

Picturebook

A powerful account of the reclamation of an urban landscape told wordlessly through fascinating, detailed collage artwork.

Observed through the window of a house, a city street gradually becomes a place to call home as the inhabitants begin to rescue their street by planting grass and trees in the empty spaces. Year by year, everything begins to blossom… Told wordlessly and with stunning collage illustrations, Belonging explores the re-greening of the city and the role of community, the empowerment of people and the significance of children, family and neighbourhood in changing the urban environment for the better.

Mouse House

Picturebook

In the house there lives a family: a mum, a dad, a girl and a boy. But they are not alone; a secret mouse family is living there too, who only come out when everyone else is asleep.

One day they are spotted and the mouse catcher is called … Will they escape in time?

A story of home and hope from picture-book genius, John Burningham.

Major Glad, Major Dizzy

Picturebook

Major Glad, Major Dizzy is a photographic picture storybook designed for children aged 5 – 10 years. It’s based on the true discovery of a hidden hoard of Victorian toys under the author’s floor. It will introduce some of the milestones of recent British history and hopefully interest children in tracing the past through found objects and old photographs. It’s also funny and poignant in parts.

Town and Country (A Turnaround Book)

Picturebook

Compare town and country scenes full of clever little details in this beautiful new Turnaround Book – spot buses, trains, and skyscrapers in the town and tractors, mountains, and farm animals in the country. Open the book one way to explore the town scene and then flip the book over to delve into the country landscape. What can you see that’s the same in both scenes? What can you spot that’s different?

With a mini glossary for each picture – featuring tiny pictures picked out from the main scene – Town and Country is completely absorbing for children who are just starting to engage with simple written words. For younger children, this is a great read-together title – pick an item on the glossary panel, then try to find it in the big picture – an excellent introduction to looking carefully and naming objects.

The Colour of Home

Chapter book

Hassan feels out of place in a new cold, grey country. At school, he paints a picture showing his colourful Somalian home, covered with the harsh colours of war from which his family has fled. He tells his teacher about their voyage from Mogadishu to Mombasa, then to the refugee camp and on to England. But gradually things change. When Hassan’s parents put up his next picture on the wall, Hassan notices the maroon prayer mat, a bright green cushion and his sister Naima’s pink dress – the new colours of home.

A World of Cities

Non-fiction

Bring cities around the world to life with this beautiful anthology from print-maker James Brown.

Climb Paris’s Eiffel Tower, explore Cairo’s ancient pyramids, wander the busy streets of New Delhi and see the lights of Shanghai in this whirlwind tour of the world’s most beautiful cities. Print-maker James Brown, the talent behind international bestseller A World of Information , has rendered each city in bold, bright colours, with fascinating facts about the history and culture incorporated into the contemporary designs. London, New York and Tokyo have never looked so stylish – or so alive.

Skyscrapers (Awesome Engineering)

Non-fiction

Follow the development of skyscrapers, as they have grown taller and taller, and more fantastical through engineering skill, design and ambition.

Get to grips with the mind-boggling advances that have been made in engineering. Find out about awe-inspiring buildings and technology. The books in the Awesome Engineering series are filled with impactful artwork, diagrams and explanations that make the awesome feats of engineering easy to understand.

Presents a chronology of landmark engineering achievements from around the world with fascinating facts about each construction.

How Does my Home Work?

Non-fiction, Picturebook

The third title in a series of process books, this stylishly illustrated book explains how our homes are supplied with electricity, water and gas.

A sequel to Lunchbox: The Story of Your Food and Where Do Clothes Come From? by Chris Butterworth and Lucia Gaggiotti, this stylishly illustrated book explains the mechanical processes required to produce the things our homes needs to keep us happy and comfortable – electricity, water and gas. Chris Butterworth traces the journey of water, describing how it falls from the sky as rain then gets collected up in reservoirs and sent to factories to be treated and tested, before it can finally be piped to our homes. She also simply and clearly explains how electricity is made and where the gas we use in our boilers comes from. This fascinating process book succeeds in being young, child-centred and friendly, but also packs in an enormous amount of technical information.

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Stone Girl Bone Girl

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