OLD HOUSE, NEW HOUSE

After spending the summer in an old country house, a little girl feels bereft when her family moves west to a new house. As the girl and her parents settle into the rural house without plumbing, she revels in the cranberry bog, plays with neighbor kids, picks berries, bathes in a washtub and has the “very best summer” ever. But when summer ends and they leave, she feels sad parting from the old house and her friends. She wonders if she will ever see snow or find a new friend. By describing her feelings of elation and sadness in first-person, past-tense verse, the little girl creates a nostalgic tone that captures her idyllic memories of that perfect summer. Potter’s softly hued chalk-pastel illustrations spread across the pages with elegiac images of the girl drawing well water, lying by the cranberry bog, picking blueberries, washing in a galvanized tub and cavorting with farm animals. The satisfying and simple verbal and visual images sustain summer memories while anticipating life in a new place. (Picture book. 4-8)