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Farmhouse
Two-time Caldecott Medalist Sophie Blackall invites readers to peek through windows that shine like real glass on this lavish book’s cover, and explore the dollhouse-like world of a beloved farmhouse where twelve children were born and raised.
Over a hill, at the end of a road, by a glittering stream that twists and turns stands a farmhouse.
Step inside the dollhouse-like interior of Farmhouse and relish in the daily life of the family that lives there, rendered in impeccable, thrilling detail. Based on a real family and an actual farmhouse where Sophie salvaged facts and artifacts for the making of this spectacular work, page after page bursts with luminous detail and joy. Join the award-winning, best-selling Sophie Blackall as she takes readers on an enchanting visit to a farmhouse across time, to a place that echoes with stories.
Over a hill, at the end of a road, by a glittering stream that twists and turns stands a farmhouse.
Step inside the dollhouse-like interior of Farmhouse and relish in the daily life of the family that lives there, rendered in impeccable, thrilling detail. Based on a real family and an actual farmhouse where Sophie salvaged facts and artifacts for the making of this spectacular work, page after page bursts with luminous detail and joy. Join the award-winning, best-selling Sophie Blackall as she takes readers on an enchanting visit to a farmhouse across time, to a place that echoes with stories.
48 pages, Hardcover
First published September 13, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 504 reviews
December 30, 2022
The pictures in this book are made of layers. I began with the reverse side of a roll of wallpaper and added floors and walls and furniture, made from scraps and fragments I found in the house. Most of the first layers are invisible now, hidden beneath embellishments and details, in the way that stories become layered as they get retold over the years. Stories about everything, and nothing much, that stay alive long after children grow up and houses fall down, while wildflowers nod their heads in the sun.
It will not surprise me if Sophie Blackall wins another Caldecott Medal for this masterpiece of a book. Actual pieces of the old farmhouse are included in the illustrations. Accompanying the layered look is a lyrical story about the Swantak family and their twelve children. I especially loved the last two-page spread with the farmhouse laid open like a dollhouse. This book reminded me of my childhood and growing up in a farmhouse where we prayed and ate and played and lived life together. The pictures of the children all working on the farm with their parents was also something I experienced. I could relate to the panel where Blackall shows a grumpy child milking the cows one day and juxtaposed on the other page is a happy child doing the same chore. My siblings and I did not always love our work in the garden or the field or the pigpen, but we most certainly were blessed by our experiences and developed a strong work ethic. Enjoy your visit to the Swantak farm. Sophie Blackall brought it back to life for us.
It will not surprise me if Sophie Blackall wins another Caldecott Medal for this masterpiece of a book. Actual pieces of the old farmhouse are included in the illustrations. Accompanying the layered look is a lyrical story about the Swantak family and their twelve children. I especially loved the last two-page spread with the farmhouse laid open like a dollhouse. This book reminded me of my childhood and growing up in a farmhouse where we prayed and ate and played and lived life together. The pictures of the children all working on the farm with their parents was also something I experienced. I could relate to the panel where Blackall shows a grumpy child milking the cows one day and juxtaposed on the other page is a happy child doing the same chore. My siblings and I did not always love our work in the garden or the field or the pigpen, but we most certainly were blessed by our experiences and developed a strong work ethic. Enjoy your visit to the Swantak farm. Sophie Blackall brought it back to life for us.
June 3, 2022
The role of a physical home in a child’s life has provided fodder for thousands and thousands of picture books over the years. There are those that are speculative, wondering what it would be like to live somewhere fantastical (like in Molly on the Moon). Some compare one type of home to another (Mirror by Jeannie Baker). For kids with housing security, they may identify keenly with those structures that have housed them. So much so that there are ample picture books about the process of moving from one home to another (my personal favorite being Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood). And some books consider the life of the physical structure of a home itself. The most classic example of this is probably The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. In that book you don’t see much of the family that lived in the house, but you do see its slow decomposition over the years and the encroaching urbanization. That is, until the happy ending where it’s taken away, fixed up, and given a new lease on life (odds are that encroaching urbanization is gonna start all over again, tho). Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall probably owes some of its existence to Burton’s classic title, though the heart of this book isn’t walls or floors or windows but the people that lived alongside them. Speculation yields a carefully, even meticulously rendered story of an average white farm family, living life in a home, until time takes its toll and we all have to wrestle with what that means.
Go down to the end of a road and you’ll find a farmhouse where twelve children live. We watch them as they do their chores and get in trouble for painting the family cat. We see their dreams, and watch the seasons change. By the end, though, everyone grows up. Even the baby, no longer young, who leaves the house last of all, goes to the sea with her sister. The house’s door opens and in comes nature to take charge of everything inside. Everything, that is, until Sophie Blackall arrives and finds the house in its dilapidated state. So she takes things and cuts things and writes this book to remember the children that once lived here and the lives these walls once saw. An Author’s Note at the end talks about the real house that Sophie bought and the treasures of the past she found both inside and outside.
As a child, I was fascinated by old places. I’d poke around my grandmothers’ homes, in search of family secrets or treasure. For me, the past left its echoes everywhere. Every physical object could tell some kind of a story. I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking that I would have adored Farmhouse. I think much of that love would have been wrapped up in Blackall’s meticulous attention to detail. You see, my favorite picture book growing up was A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor, and there are more than a few similarities between this book and that one. In both cases you follow a family in the past through the seasons. You see all these details about the home that they live and grow up in. The difference may lie a lot in the characterizations. These kids all have very different personalities. Personalities that kind of culminate in this fantastic moment near the end where you see a photograph of all twelve of them and can match them to glimpses of the occupations they held later in life. I know for a fact that I would have spent inordinate amounts of time pairing each kid to their future self (and Blackall makes this a bit easier by offering visual clues, like the girl holding the kitten growing up to be a vet, for instance).
Reading this book, though, you start to think about how kids attach emotionally to the physical structures that they inhabit. So it’s just wild to me that Sophie chooses not to end the book, as all these other books have, with the house’s final restitution. You don’t see the final destruction (much, I’m sure, to the chagrin of bulldozer loving kids everywhere) and that’s smart, but that still means that you leave the house in its dilapidated state. This is such an interesting choice. How easily Sophie could have gone the route seen in books like Ray’s The House of Grass and Sky and ended with some crowd pleasing denouement where the house is brought back to life. It seems to me that both tonally and thematically, this book has much more in common with the Julie Fogliano/Lane Smith collaboration on A House That Once Was. In both cases you’ve a house abandoned to the elements, containing traces of the family that once lived there. In both cases that family is not coming back, and the narrator speculates on who they might have been and what their lives were like long ago.
For months before this book was published I took great pleasure in watching Sophie Blackall put the art together physically on Instagram. In many ways, this book feels like a dollhouse for professional illustrators. Years and years ago I visited the studio in Brooklyn that Sophie shared with a number of other artists, and in the corner was a little mini studio with models. I think at the time there was some hope that Sophie would do a book with models as illustrations, ala Red Nose Studio, but nothing ever came of it. Or maybe I shouldn’t say that, since this book is as close as one can come to paper as models. It almost has a paper doll-like quality to it. If you find those old videos, you can watch as Sophie puts together the attic bedroom that many of the children share. It’s the physicality of the enterprise that really comes through to the reader. There’s a kind of POP to the art. We know that all art on a page is two-dimensional. This book just gives an extra added layer of depth to the proceedings. Notice too that you don’t get that feel with the landscape scenes. This dimensionality is completely centered on the house itself. So cool.
I always feel a little bad when I’m reviewing an author/illustrator and I hold off until the very end of the review to mention that they’re a helluva writer as well. It’s tricky. There's a perception that any old joe schmoe can write a picture book, but that it takes true talent to illustrate one. But even the best artist in the world can only salvage poor writing to a certain extent. And there is NO guarantee that an illustrator is going to be skilled with the written word. I know plenty of Caldecott Award and Honor winners that have written and illustrated perfectly decent, perfectly meh books. Farmhouse hasn’t even the barest whiff of “meh” about it, though. I mean, talk about an opening sentence: “Over a hill, at the end of a road, by a glittering stream that twists and turns, stands a house.” From there we meet the family, come to love them, and then there’s a kind of vertigo that takes place when you go from one two-page spread where the youngest baby has a disease with spots, to that baby now an old woman, saying goodbye to the house for the last time. We watch the home disintegrate and this isn’t treated as a bad thing. It’s seen as natural, in its way. The only crime would be to forget, and so the book gets a little meta on us. We see Sophie herself working on this book, because homes aren’t immortal. But books? If they’re read and remembered, they’ll last longer. As she says in the last sentence, the kids will, “live on, now, in this book that you hold, like your stories will, so long as they’re told.”
Maybe that’s the thing about this book I like so much. Picture books about old houses or old cars or other old structures view natural decomposition as something to be fought and fixed. Farmhouse respectfully disagrees. The tragedy at work here is that the stories that took place in this house might not get told again. They might fade in the memories of the people who knew them. So rather than refurbish and restore the house, Sophie refurbish and restores the family and their lives in book form. And maybe there will be a child that reads this book and begins to wonder about old photographs in their own homes. Maybe they’ll ask for stories about their own ancestors and, if they’re lucky, maybe they’ll hear some they never heard before. We can’t help but wonder about the people who came before us. Isn’t it nice when someone like Sophie Blackall is able to give them a little gift, in appreciation for coming before? A lovely, moving, thoughtful book, full of children, life and death, and the turning of the years.
Go down to the end of a road and you’ll find a farmhouse where twelve children live. We watch them as they do their chores and get in trouble for painting the family cat. We see their dreams, and watch the seasons change. By the end, though, everyone grows up. Even the baby, no longer young, who leaves the house last of all, goes to the sea with her sister. The house’s door opens and in comes nature to take charge of everything inside. Everything, that is, until Sophie Blackall arrives and finds the house in its dilapidated state. So she takes things and cuts things and writes this book to remember the children that once lived here and the lives these walls once saw. An Author’s Note at the end talks about the real house that Sophie bought and the treasures of the past she found both inside and outside.
As a child, I was fascinated by old places. I’d poke around my grandmothers’ homes, in search of family secrets or treasure. For me, the past left its echoes everywhere. Every physical object could tell some kind of a story. I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking that I would have adored Farmhouse. I think much of that love would have been wrapped up in Blackall’s meticulous attention to detail. You see, my favorite picture book growing up was A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor, and there are more than a few similarities between this book and that one. In both cases you follow a family in the past through the seasons. You see all these details about the home that they live and grow up in. The difference may lie a lot in the characterizations. These kids all have very different personalities. Personalities that kind of culminate in this fantastic moment near the end where you see a photograph of all twelve of them and can match them to glimpses of the occupations they held later in life. I know for a fact that I would have spent inordinate amounts of time pairing each kid to their future self (and Blackall makes this a bit easier by offering visual clues, like the girl holding the kitten growing up to be a vet, for instance).
Reading this book, though, you start to think about how kids attach emotionally to the physical structures that they inhabit. So it’s just wild to me that Sophie chooses not to end the book, as all these other books have, with the house’s final restitution. You don’t see the final destruction (much, I’m sure, to the chagrin of bulldozer loving kids everywhere) and that’s smart, but that still means that you leave the house in its dilapidated state. This is such an interesting choice. How easily Sophie could have gone the route seen in books like Ray’s The House of Grass and Sky and ended with some crowd pleasing denouement where the house is brought back to life. It seems to me that both tonally and thematically, this book has much more in common with the Julie Fogliano/Lane Smith collaboration on A House That Once Was. In both cases you’ve a house abandoned to the elements, containing traces of the family that once lived there. In both cases that family is not coming back, and the narrator speculates on who they might have been and what their lives were like long ago.
For months before this book was published I took great pleasure in watching Sophie Blackall put the art together physically on Instagram. In many ways, this book feels like a dollhouse for professional illustrators. Years and years ago I visited the studio in Brooklyn that Sophie shared with a number of other artists, and in the corner was a little mini studio with models. I think at the time there was some hope that Sophie would do a book with models as illustrations, ala Red Nose Studio, but nothing ever came of it. Or maybe I shouldn’t say that, since this book is as close as one can come to paper as models. It almost has a paper doll-like quality to it. If you find those old videos, you can watch as Sophie puts together the attic bedroom that many of the children share. It’s the physicality of the enterprise that really comes through to the reader. There’s a kind of POP to the art. We know that all art on a page is two-dimensional. This book just gives an extra added layer of depth to the proceedings. Notice too that you don’t get that feel with the landscape scenes. This dimensionality is completely centered on the house itself. So cool.
I always feel a little bad when I’m reviewing an author/illustrator and I hold off until the very end of the review to mention that they’re a helluva writer as well. It’s tricky. There's a perception that any old joe schmoe can write a picture book, but that it takes true talent to illustrate one. But even the best artist in the world can only salvage poor writing to a certain extent. And there is NO guarantee that an illustrator is going to be skilled with the written word. I know plenty of Caldecott Award and Honor winners that have written and illustrated perfectly decent, perfectly meh books. Farmhouse hasn’t even the barest whiff of “meh” about it, though. I mean, talk about an opening sentence: “Over a hill, at the end of a road, by a glittering stream that twists and turns, stands a house.” From there we meet the family, come to love them, and then there’s a kind of vertigo that takes place when you go from one two-page spread where the youngest baby has a disease with spots, to that baby now an old woman, saying goodbye to the house for the last time. We watch the home disintegrate and this isn’t treated as a bad thing. It’s seen as natural, in its way. The only crime would be to forget, and so the book gets a little meta on us. We see Sophie herself working on this book, because homes aren’t immortal. But books? If they’re read and remembered, they’ll last longer. As she says in the last sentence, the kids will, “live on, now, in this book that you hold, like your stories will, so long as they’re told.”
Maybe that’s the thing about this book I like so much. Picture books about old houses or old cars or other old structures view natural decomposition as something to be fought and fixed. Farmhouse respectfully disagrees. The tragedy at work here is that the stories that took place in this house might not get told again. They might fade in the memories of the people who knew them. So rather than refurbish and restore the house, Sophie refurbish and restores the family and their lives in book form. And maybe there will be a child that reads this book and begins to wonder about old photographs in their own homes. Maybe they’ll ask for stories about their own ancestors and, if they’re lucky, maybe they’ll hear some they never heard before. We can’t help but wonder about the people who came before us. Isn’t it nice when someone like Sophie Blackall is able to give them a little gift, in appreciation for coming before? A lovely, moving, thoughtful book, full of children, life and death, and the turning of the years.
November 1, 2022
A beautiful book that tells the history of the lives a farmhouse held through the years and how they live on as long as we continue to tell their stories. I loved how the farmhouse itself revealed how the family lived. For example, "wallpaper peeled like onion skins," revealing within the layers the changes through the years. Designs of wallpaper are like timestamps for what was fashionable at that moment in time. I also loved that the growth of the children was "measured with marks over the years" on the wall by the bottom of the stairs. A book to warm the heart.
November 15, 2022
Two-time Caldecott-winner Sophie Blackall has another winner, a sweet book about a farmhouse she bought in upstate New York that had remnants of the lives lived in it before: Marks on the wall for child growth, handmade clothes, a piano, and so on. Blackall carefully catalogues all she finds in the house (beyond repair, finally) and through the objects (fictionally) reconstructs the lives of the family that had lived there.
I think the story is good and the language, the poetry, even better, but the artwork also enhances and enriches. Blackall says the artwork in the book includes, watercolor, Chinese ink, gouache and colored pencil, and materials she salvaged from the house, including wallpaper, paperbags, string, curtains, clothes. The book suddenly sails into significance after you read the afterword, where Blackall explains that the house was actually a real house she bought, and we learn all about what she went through. Then you reread it again and see the deeper meaning of her purpose.
I think the story is good and the language, the poetry, even better, but the artwork also enhances and enriches. Blackall says the artwork in the book includes, watercolor, Chinese ink, gouache and colored pencil, and materials she salvaged from the house, including wallpaper, paperbags, string, curtains, clothes. The book suddenly sails into significance after you read the afterword, where Blackall explains that the house was actually a real house she bought, and we learn all about what she went through. Then you reread it again and see the deeper meaning of her purpose.
June 18, 2023
5 stars for the extraordinary art. 3 stars for the story, which I doubt would hold any child’s interest because it’s plotless. Back to the extraordinary art, it is lovely.
November 24, 2022
I keep revisiting this book and reading it again and again, sometimes silently, other times out loud.
It has captivated me and perplexed me.
I don't entirely care for the text, which is one long run-on sentence that extends through the whole book. I can't seem to find rhythm while reading it.. some parts flow beautifully in rhyme, and other parts lack any tempo. It's inconsistent.
But by the end of my first reading, the words had me choked up with emotion and tears in my eyes.
This story falls close to my heart, as it will for many. I hold a deep fondness for old and/or abandoned farmsteads. I grew up on one. I've explored and photographed many, and rescued treasures left behind, and imagined the stories of those who lived, struggled, and loved there.
I love Blackall's illustrations of the rolling patchwork landscape. How the illustrations were made is special and invites a closer look with each reading.
Check out this short video: https://youtu.be/YrDwqLoSv6k
I was saddened to read in the Author's Note about the demolition and burial of the Farmhouse and its parlor organ. I hope all that was salvageable was saved.
Kudos to Sophie Blackall for what she has preserved in this book, especially for the family who lived there, "where they'll live on, now, in this book that you hold, like your stories will, so long as they're told."
It has captivated me and perplexed me.
I don't entirely care for the text, which is one long run-on sentence that extends through the whole book. I can't seem to find rhythm while reading it.. some parts flow beautifully in rhyme, and other parts lack any tempo. It's inconsistent.
But by the end of my first reading, the words had me choked up with emotion and tears in my eyes.
This story falls close to my heart, as it will for many. I hold a deep fondness for old and/or abandoned farmsteads. I grew up on one. I've explored and photographed many, and rescued treasures left behind, and imagined the stories of those who lived, struggled, and loved there.
I love Blackall's illustrations of the rolling patchwork landscape. How the illustrations were made is special and invites a closer look with each reading.
Check out this short video: https://youtu.be/YrDwqLoSv6k
I was saddened to read in the Author's Note about the demolition and burial of the Farmhouse and its parlor organ. I hope all that was salvageable was saved.
Kudos to Sophie Blackall for what she has preserved in this book, especially for the family who lived there, "where they'll live on, now, in this book that you hold, like your stories will, so long as they're told."
January 13, 2023
Delightful, creative, nostalgic. Loved this one.
September 11, 2022
The impact time has on people, buildings and the environment is a constant theme in my reading, and Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall is based on the true story of a house the author discovered when she purchased an old farm. The house was falling down and neglected, yet a family of twelve children had once been raised and lived within those walls. Sophie Blackall was hooked and loved exploring the items and sorting the objects left behind to piece together their stories.
Together with the fact that this children's picture book includes a 'dollhouse-like interior', I was eager to step inside Blackall's Farmhouse to learn about those who once lived there.
Farmhouse is a tribute to this house and other unnamed and unknown homes and residences which have been abandoned or outlived their purpose and which have eventually been reduced to dust in the name of progress.
Firstly, my favourite thing about this picture book are the end papers. A montage of artwork and photographs of items and materials from the house that inspired the book, it's absolutely captivating. It's like looking at a digital scrapbook of creativity, memories and the passage of time. Look closer and the curtains around the windows are scraps of fabric, look again and you'll notice newspaper clippings, photographs and scraps of wallpaper.
I was spending such a long time admiring the mixed media illustrations that when I turned a page and the text started mid sentence, it was disorienting. The entire story is told without a single full stop and while I found this bothersome, perhaps it wouldn't have been so noticeable if I'd been reading it with a child at the intended pace.
Also, I treasure and look after my books, however the dust jacket on my copy of Farmhouse is looking a little tired around the edges from minimal and careful handling, so I can't imagine how quickly this would begin to look tatty in the eager hands of little readers. (I do wonder about the wisdom of dust jackets for children's picture books, so if you have an opinion on this let me know in the comments section below).
Illustrated by the author herself, Sophie Blackall was born and raised in Australia and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her significant service to children's literature.
I enjoyed the story behind the story and finding out the content in Farmhouse was inspired by those who actually lived there - in the author's note at the back of the book - gave greater meaning to this charming little storybook.
* Copy courtesy of Hachette Australia *
Together with the fact that this children's picture book includes a 'dollhouse-like interior', I was eager to step inside Blackall's Farmhouse to learn about those who once lived there.
Farmhouse is a tribute to this house and other unnamed and unknown homes and residences which have been abandoned or outlived their purpose and which have eventually been reduced to dust in the name of progress.
Firstly, my favourite thing about this picture book are the end papers. A montage of artwork and photographs of items and materials from the house that inspired the book, it's absolutely captivating. It's like looking at a digital scrapbook of creativity, memories and the passage of time. Look closer and the curtains around the windows are scraps of fabric, look again and you'll notice newspaper clippings, photographs and scraps of wallpaper.
I was spending such a long time admiring the mixed media illustrations that when I turned a page and the text started mid sentence, it was disorienting. The entire story is told without a single full stop and while I found this bothersome, perhaps it wouldn't have been so noticeable if I'd been reading it with a child at the intended pace.
Also, I treasure and look after my books, however the dust jacket on my copy of Farmhouse is looking a little tired around the edges from minimal and careful handling, so I can't imagine how quickly this would begin to look tatty in the eager hands of little readers. (I do wonder about the wisdom of dust jackets for children's picture books, so if you have an opinion on this let me know in the comments section below).
Illustrated by the author herself, Sophie Blackall was born and raised in Australia and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her significant service to children's literature.
I enjoyed the story behind the story and finding out the content in Farmhouse was inspired by those who actually lived there - in the author's note at the back of the book - gave greater meaning to this charming little storybook.
* Copy courtesy of Hachette Australia *
February 23, 2023
Precious!!
March 5, 2023
My mom basically grew up in the same farmhouse, but even that connection couldn't get me into this rummage through the ruins of another family's life. It might have helped if the author didn't write the whole thing as one long, run-on sentence that smacks of poetry on a day when I'm just not having poetry, thank you.
And for some reason, I just found it creepy when the afterword jumps to the destruction of the run-down farmhouse and she talks of incorporating debris she scavenged from the site into the artwork of the book.
Not for me.
(Another project! I'm trying to read all the picture books and graphic novels on the kids section of NPR's Books We Love 2022.)
And for some reason, I just found it creepy when the afterword jumps to the destruction of the run-down farmhouse and she talks of incorporating debris she scavenged from the site into the artwork of the book.
Not for me.
(Another project! I'm trying to read all the picture books and graphic novels on the kids section of NPR's Books We Love 2022.)
September 29, 2022
I wanted the words to rhyme, or at least have a rhythm. At times they did, but quickly lost any kind of pacing. Disorienting.
January 2, 2023
What a beautiful book to start 2023 with.
December 7, 2022
A beautifully illustrated story of an old farmhouse and the family who graced the halls for many years.
April 12, 2023
I am a big fan of Sophie Blackall's work. The illustrations in this one are exquisite. Oh, that wallpaper!
October 8, 2022
In my opinion, this is Sophie Blackall's best work. I spent so much time, pouring over the details in the illustrations. I would have done the same thing as a young reader, trying to find every nook and cranny in the house. Sophie's note at the end of the book is a must read!
January 8, 2023
Not as impressed with this one as the reviewers said I should be. Might be because the creation of it was special and interesting but in its finished, readable form I didn’t notice all the creative work.
December 5, 2022
Over a hill, at the end of a road, by a glittering stream that twists and turns, stands a house...
sophie blackall is one of my favorite illustrator's for children (adults, too!): Hello Lighthouse, If You Come to Earth, Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found. her latest is a thoughtful story & inspired by real events. farmhouse is surprisingly moving & the details of her illustrations only make it more so. check her out on insta & youtube for more of her work.
sophie blackall is one of my favorite illustrator's for children (adults, too!): Hello Lighthouse, If You Come to Earth, Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found. her latest is a thoughtful story & inspired by real events. farmhouse is surprisingly moving & the details of her illustrations only make it more so. check her out on insta & youtube for more of her work.
December 2, 2022
This book is phenomenal. It is a joy to read aloud with its careful meter and rhyme. It's a delight to search the pictures for every little hidden gem. This could work as a story time book for a large group of kids, but it would be much more enjoyable as a story time book with just a couple kids so they can study the pictures. A very fun eye spy book, incidentally. If I had this book as a child, this would have been one of my favorites that I stared at for hours. If you know a kid who loves staring at detail in images, this is the present for them!
January 6, 2023
Wow. WoW! WOW!!! This is a fabulous book and my fifth graders enjoyed it today. As an adult, I enjoyed it more and thought of a few people who would love this book. The artwork is incredible and the story behind the artwork shows deep respect. To be remembered is a type of love. Great job, Sophie Blackall! I wish you all of the awards!
September 13, 2022
My coworker shoved this into my hands while they were receiving a massive package of books and just said, "Read this."
I read it. I loved it.
I read it. I loved it.
April 16, 2023
Beautiful, charming illustrations and a lovely story (and back story) as well. The stories that old homes would tell if their walls could talk!
January 5, 2023
i don't normally rate picture books on here but this one is so lovely and beautifully illustrated that i couldn't help myself.
January 3, 2024
Found this book unintentionally on the display shelf at the library and it's a very cute picture book! I love the art and how the author made it, as well as the history of the house.
January 18, 2024
I don’t usually include picture books in my list, but the detail in this moving book warrants several readings and searching of the beautiful illustrations. Also, the author’s note is lengthy and inspiring.
it’s very special …I enjoyed the visual continuity throughout of each characters
it’s very special …I enjoyed the visual continuity throughout of each characters
October 5, 2022
Beautiful, beautiful book.
June 28, 2023
Beautiful illustrations, like peeking into a dollhouse; beautiful text; a beautiful read-aloud with four children wrestling in my lap!
November 21, 2022
Author/illustrator Sophie Blackall tells the stories of an old farmhouse that sheltered twelve children...the stories of the making of the house, the children's play and the children's work, the evolution of the house until it finally became a home not for people but for wild animals. And all the stories are told in sparkling rhymes and all the stories are illustrated with vivid and detailed pictures.
A true nostalgic delight of a picture book.
A true nostalgic delight of a picture book.
October 10, 2023
Written poem style Sophie blackall pays homage to an old Farmhouse and the family that once lived there. It's worth a trip to the library to sit and read it in the children's section if you don't have little ones.
February 18, 2023
Have you ever visited a historic house or place and wondered about the lives of those in them?
Let Sophie Blackall take you on a poetic journey through the titular Farmhouse, based on a real family and a real house where 12 children were raised.
The artwork for the book uses items that were actually salvaged by Blackall from the house to incorporate the history of the house even more.
A unique picture book glimpse into history and a home!
Let Sophie Blackall take you on a poetic journey through the titular Farmhouse, based on a real family and a real house where 12 children were raised.
The artwork for the book uses items that were actually salvaged by Blackall from the house to incorporate the history of the house even more.
A unique picture book glimpse into history and a home!
April 7, 2024
As someone who grew up "in the country", whose parents both grew up on farms and where I grew up next to the one my grandparents operated that was then operated by my aunt and uncle, there is a more magical understanding of what Blackall did than meets the eye. Yes, she took the remnants of an abandoned farmhouse to put together this children's book and then wrote a narrative that tugs at the heartstrings but brings up "days of old" but also showcases the connection to land, family, and physical things like houses. When the oldest leaves (UGH!?!) I think I wept. And then to have the seasons enact their wrath, it's a natural cycle that isn't sad as it is a circle of understanding about life.
I feel this one deeply and she wrote a narrative to match the power of the illustration type. I will have to own this one.
Rereading this year turning forty and this one will travel me until the day I die. This one reminds me of homes as memories-- the house I grew up in and the one we built for ourselves.
I feel this one deeply and she wrote a narrative to match the power of the illustration type. I will have to own this one.
Rereading this year turning forty and this one will travel me until the day I die. This one reminds me of homes as memories-- the house I grew up in and the one we built for ourselves.
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