A Very Special House

I've got nothing more to add- this is just the best!

This was a Caldecott Medal winner in 1954. I think I got it as a Christmas gift a few years later. I loved it . . . I could recite it perfectly by the time I was 5 or 6. When my daughter was born, I got another copy, and it became a fast favorite again. It was lost in a move a few years ago, and my daughter, now 16, was mentioning the other day that she wished we hadn't lost it. I came out here to look, hoping that there might be a used copy I could get her for her next birthday, and wonder of wonders, there's a fresh new copy available. I'll have to read it a few times before her birthday, because I don't think she'll let me read it aloud to her anymore. Maybe she'll read it to me when I can't fall asleep.

This book came to our family as a hand-me-down from a neighbor for my 2-year-old son, and now we can't live with out it. The rhymes are so witty, entertaining and infectious that I can't tell people about the book without quoting verbatim. Krauss's playful use of language is eternally endearing and Sendaks quirky illustrations of chair-chomping lions and clumsy giants are a treasure. I had feared that this book would be out of print. Now that I have found it, I am buying it for every child (and parent) I know starting with my three-year-old nephew.

I LOVED this book as a child, so much that I asked for a copy as a birthday gift as an adult. This is the most visually entertaining, linguistically exciting, playful and joyful story I ever read in a children's book. Sendak's simple illustrations are profoundly expressive and appropriate for Kraus' self-indugent imaginary escapade. Yes, to most people it probably seems a little bit weird, but if you have an imaginitive child in your life....BUY HIM OR HER THIS BOOK!

...and it's just a house for me me me At first reading, somewhat bizarre. So read it twice! It grows on you; it grew into our favorite children's book. It screams to be read aloud; the rhymes aren't Seuss-ly annoying, and the rhythms are interesting. "...they and I are making musicand we're falling over laughing"The simple illustrations (Sendak, I think?) are great. Krauss's expressions of child-ego are true-to-my-memory, and rang bells with my kids. I could not afford books back then; fortunately our children's librarian had my taste in books (I don't recall any Berenstain Bears!); but this was one book I HAD TO OWN. It makes a very JOYFUL noise. Read it, then find a copy of Pete Seeger's or Woody Guthries' folk songs for kids... a perfect hour.