Home

Mark Hadley and Nathan Lee, Growing Faith

Written by Mark Hadley and illustrated by Nathan Lee, Home is a great picture book for children who feel left out, particularly artistic boys.

The main character is Panda who travels around trying to find friends with similar interests. Initially, he lives with elephants, which, of course, could never work out as they don’t like Renoir, crash cymbals or kick flips. Then he tries living with his own kind, but the pandas don’t like drums either and refuse to go to the Museum of Modern Bamboo with him. Eventually, he finds a village for animals which can cope with being a little different and accept differences in others, and he lives happily ever after.

Home is very funny, with little ironic comments to entertain the adults who will be expected to read this book a lot. My favourite is: “It was a very long journey. It took 4 whole pages.”

The pictures are also very winsome, particularly a pelican waving Panda good bye. However, the best pictures are the jungle with eyes hidden peeping out of leaves, big, green plants almost as big as Panda and two purple frogs; and the rhinoceros on orange grass, yellow soil and nicely smudged leaves on the tree. The last page contains information about the book’s themes and possible discussion points for parents and their children. I don’t think this was strictly necessary, as the themes are clear. Otherwise, a wonderful book.

Katy Gerner