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Searching... Central | Kid/Juvenile | Open Stacks Picture Books | Open Stacks Kids Book | E WELLS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Writing in a scrapbook in 1927, a young girl tells the fascinating story of her family's mail-order house arriving from Sears, Roebuck. Moving out of the little house they share with their grandparents, Emily and her brother, Homer, have a lot of changes in store for them: an electric refrigerator, electric lights, a washing machine, a gas stove, and running water indoors. Luminous illustrations show, in great detail, the process of clearing the land, building a foundation, and creating a house from a kit. Hand-written captions from Emily give the illustrations a cozy, personal feel, showing the reader just how exciting a house in the mail can be.
Author Notes
Rosemary Wells was born in New York City on January 29, 1943. She studied at the Museum School in Boston. Without her degree, she left school at the age of 19 to get married. She began her career in publishing, working as an art editor and designer first at Allyn and Bacon and later at Macmillan Publishing.
She is an author and illustrator of over 60 books for children and young adults. Her first book was an illustrated edition of Gilbert and Sullivan's I Have a Song to Sing-O. Her other works include Martha's Birthday, The Fog Comes on Little Pig Feet, Unfortunately Harriet, Mary on Horseback, and Timothy Goes to School. She also created the characters of Max and Ruby, Noisy Nora, and Yoko, which are featured in some of her books. She has won numerous awards including a Children's Book Council Award for Noisy Nora in 1974, the Edgar Allan Poe award for two young adult books, Through the Looking Glass and When No One Was Looking, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Shy Charles.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 4-In the early to mid-1900s, it was possible to order entire houses through the mail. In this charming story, the Cartwrights of Kentucky choose, send for, build, and furnish just such a home in 1927. Twelve-year-old Emily has kept a scrapbook to document the procedure. The text is a comfortable blend of information with occasional insights into the life and relationships of the family. Little brother Homer is thrilled that there will be a window onto the roof so he can climb out and watch the stars, but concerned that the indoor running water will mean more baths. Andreasen's illustrations, in appropriate scrapbook format, are chock-full of gracefully rendered details from the period, including a Hoosier cabinet and "modern" icebox. This is a lovely way to introduce today's children to an interesting slice of Americana.-Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Rosemary Wells and her late husband, an architect, charmingly detail the construction of a house built from a kit ordered from the Sears, Roebuck catalogue in 1928. Narrated by 12-year-old Emily and arranged to resemble a scrapbook, the volume exuberantly begins: "Hello, whoever you are out there in the world of the future!" Convincing if staid facsimiles of snapshots, advertisements, blueprints, objects in the new house and holiday mementos bolster the period particulars in the story, which speaks also to the strong bond among the members of Emily's family. Anecdotes and snatches of conversation flesh out the era. For example, when her younger brother wishes aloud that their parents had used the house money to buy a Ford truck instead, Emily points out the modern conveniences: "An electric refrigerator. No more drip pan for you to empty from under the icebox. And Ma won't make you carry twenty buckets of hot water for the laundry, because we're getting a new washing machine." From the selection of "the Lincoln" (a six-room "bungalow" selling for $2,500) to the hanging of 22 doors on brass hinges, Emily chronicles each step of the house-raising. Andreasen's (illustrator of Wells's Streets of Gold) art adheres to the scrapbook premise, sacrificing a more dynamic rhythm and palette to offer neatly compiled images in muted colors; the visual treatment is both faithful and skillful. Ages 6-10. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Accompanied by album-style illustrations including drawings, clippings, buttons, and other mementos, this text presents one familyÆs construction of a mail-order home from Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1927. Eleven-year-old Emily Cartwright engagingly explains how her family decided on a model, received it by train, erected it in stages, and installed its modern conveniences just in time for a new babyÆs arrival. From HORN BOOK Fall 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Andreasen (Tattered Sails, 2001, etc.) has chosen to frame this tale about a pre-Depression Kentucky family getting a new mail-order house as a scrapbook, with 11-year-old Emily's narrative running alongside arrays of drawings, advertisements, diagrams, antique-looking photos, small keepsakes, and other memorabilia, all rendered with photorealistic precision. Having spent most of her life sharing the attic with little brother Homer, Emily is understandably thrilled to sit down at the table with her parents and pick out a house from a catalogue-a house with not only a room just for her, but such modern conveniences as indoor plumbing, an electric refrigerator, and a gas range. Half the town turns out when the house arrives in prefabricated parts, and, for Emily at least, the excitement never flags through the months of hard work it takes to put it all together. Her account is more a broad outline than a tally of nitty-gritty details, but like Jane Yolen's Raising Yoder's Barn (1998), it will leave young readers seeing the walls and buildings around them with new eyes. For a sense of period, you could hardly do better than these evocative illustrations. (Picture book. 7-9)
Booklist Review
Gr. 2-5. This remarkable picture book for older children is like discovering a slice of American life in a family scrapbook in the attic. Open the book, and you'll find bits and pieces of a relative's treasured life: old black-and-white photos, bits of ribbon, pictures cut from magazines, souvenirs, drawings. The scrapbook in this case is the work of a 12-year-old Kentucky girl, who chronicles her family's adventure when, in 1927, they ordered a house, all ready for assembly, from a mail-order catalog. The text describes the girl's discoveries and feelings as the illustrations draw readers through the three-month process of digging a hole, laying a foundation, meeting the train transporting the house parts, raising the roof, and, finally, moving into a house with indoor plumbing, electric lights, and a real bathtub. This clever look at the way many Americans built their homes in the early twentieth century has good classroom potential and will work very well for grandparent-grandchild sharing. --Connie Fletcher
