Sense of Place: A Bibliography
compiled by Gary D. Schmidt

All the Places to Love
by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Mike Wimmer
Ages 5-12, HarperCollins, 1994, 0-06-021098-2, $15.00
Early on Eli learns that all the places to love are right on the farm where he lives, where he finds blueberries and warm barns and muddy ponds and beautiful fishing streams. After the birth of his sister, he resolves to show her these places, and to teach her to love what he already loves. The gentle narrative voice and the realistic paintings make this book a celebration of the American famiy farm.

Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds
by Cynthia Rylant illustrated by Barry Moser
Ages 8-14, Harcourt Brace, 1991, 0-15-201605-8, $14.95
Accompanied by illustrations taken from photograph models, Rylantıs elegant and simple prose celebrates the life of the Appalachian people, focusing on how those lives are lived in the context of the mountains and their boundaries.

Around Town
by Chris K. Soentpiet
Ages 4-8, Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1994, 0-688-04572-3, $15.00
This celebration of life in New York focuses on how a city can be as special to some as the country is to others. Here one can eat, buy toys, see carnivals, ride horses, and have a sneaker fixed without ever stepping inside. It is an exuberant place, and Soentpietıs energetic and crafted illustrations, reminiscent of Ted Lewinıs work, capture the city energy well.

The Cabin Key
by Gloria Rand, illustrated by Ted Rand
Ages 3-8, Harcourt Brace, 1994, 0-15-213884-6, $14.95
The Rands capture movingly and lovingly the joy a child feels when he or she comes back to a family cabin set deep in the woods. Illustrations filled with detail and delight dominate the book, following the story as a young girl both remembers stories of the cabin and lives out the first winter day there. This is a special place because of the memories it evokes and the living that will be remembered in later years.

City Green
by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan
Ages 5-10, Morrow Junior Books, 1994, 0-688-12787-8, $15.00
When a building is torn down on Marcyıs block, she thinks it looks like a missing tooth; Old Man Hammer just sits and grumbles about it. But Marcy decides that she will turn the lot into a garden, and after enlisting the aid of her neighbors, she does just that, turning an eyesore into a place of real beauty.

Cowboy Country
by Ann Herbert Scott, illustrated by Ted Lewin
Ages 7-12, Clarion Books, 1993, 0-395-57561-3, $14.95
An old cowhand introduces a young boy to the wonders of cowboy country, taking him through a ranch that his own grandparents homesteaded. Set in a contemporary time, the book extolls the wonders of the Nevada countryside, filled with a hard and rocky beauty.

Desert Voices
by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter Parnall
Ages 6-10, Scribners, 1981, 0-684-16712-3, $12.95
A collection of poems narrated by the animals of the desert, this compilation celebrates the abundance of life in the desert, suggesting its fertility and beauty rather than the clichés most of us hold about the desert.

Home Place
by Crescent Dragonwagon, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Ages 8-10, Macmillan, 1990, 0-02-733190-3, $14.95
A young family walking through the woods comes upon the chimney and foundation of a house long gone, and the narrator begins to imagine the family that once lived there, filling a house now gone with life and love and grace, making this place one of memory and beauty.

Island Boy
by Barbara Cooney
Ages 5-10, Viking, 1988, 0-670-81749-X, $14.95
Young Matthias lives on Tibbetts Island, named after his family, and resolves that this special place is where he will spend his life. It is a hard life, and at times the crossing to the mainland is dangerous, but when anyone suggests that he move, he responds that he belongs to the island. This same sense of belonging will later be passed to his grandchild.

Knoxville, Tennessee
by Nikki Giovanni, illustrated by Larry Johnson
Ages 4-8, Scholastic, 1994, 0-590-47074-4, $14.95
The text of this book is a single sentence, but in that sentence Giovanni is able to portray a summer filled with grandparents and food and picnics on the church lawn and familial love, all in a country setting. The strong brushstrokes of the colorful illustrations capture the strength and exuberance of this African-American community and fill the pages with a childıs intensity, energy, and love of place.

Letting Swift River Go
by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Barbara Cooney
Ages 7-12, Little Brown, 1992, 0-316-96899-4, $15.95
Young Sally Jane watches as her town, Swift River, is purchased by the government and then flooded in order to create the Quabbin Reservoir. The book is filled with a kind of sadness at the loss of the old life of Swift River, its mills and schools and churches. But it also recalls a vanished way of life: cutting ice, tapping the maple trees, catching fireflies out in the fields. It concludes with a sense of longing for a place now gone.

The Lost Lake
by Allen Say
Ages 6-10, Houghton Mifflin, 1989, 0-395-50933-5, $14.95
When Luke and his father hike into the mountains to find the lost lake that Luke has heard of for so long, they are disappointed to see that it has now become a popular camping site. They hike further into the mountains, saddened at the loss of what had been such a special place, both in reality and in their imaginations. And then, unexpectedly, they find a new lake, all the more special for the other discoveries that have occurred between them during this time together.

The Lotus Seed
by Sherry Garland, illustrated by Tatsuro Kiuchi
Ages 5-10, Harcourt Brace, 1993, 0-15-249465-0, $14.95
This tale of a family of Vietnamese refugees is filled with a sense of loss for an older place, where the family was rooted in the land. The longing for Vietnam is symbolized by the lotus seed, taken by the narratorıs grandmother from the garden of the emperor. When it is lost, the grandmother mourns as though her last tie with Vietnam were gone. But when it blooms unexpectedly, she sees that a new place with its own traditions has taken root in her life, while the old is not entirely lost.

Matthewıs Meadow
by Corinne Demas Bliss, illustrated by Ted Lewin
Ages 9-12, Harcourt Brace, 1992, 0-15-200759-8, $14.95
When Matthew goes to the meadow cleared by his grandmother at blackberry time, he finds a hawk there who, year after year, teaches him to awaken his senses. The gift of seeing the beauty in the world opens to him, and he is able to pass this on to his daughter‹just because of the lessons he learns about nature in the meadow.

My Secret Place
by Erica Magnus
Ages 3-6, Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1994, 0-688-11859-3, $14.00
This short book tells of a young boy and his teddy bear who play in a secret place in the pine woods, slaying dragons, flying, and rounding up the cows. When the rain comes, he knows that it cannot reach their secret place, but the strong illustrations‹many from the boyıs perspective‹show a loving mother bringing up a slicker against the storm.

Owl Moon
by Jane Yolen, illustrated by John Schoenherr
Ages 5-12, Philomel, 1987, 0-399-21457-7, $14.95
A father and young daughter head out into the deep woods on a wintry night, searching for an owl. It is a special quiet time in a special quiet place, where neither realizes that they are being watched by a host of animals just out of sight. The startling watercolors of the owl evoke the sense of surprise and delight that come to any owler and anyone who loves walking the woods on a moonlit night.

Patrickıs Tree House
by Steven Kroll, illustrated by Roberta Wilson
Ages 8-12, Macmillan, 1994, 0-02-751005-0, $13.95
When Patrick comes to visit his grandparents in Maine, he finds that his grandfather has built him a special tree house, his own place where he sleeps on his first night. But the next day it is taken over by two kids from the neighborhood, and Patrick must come to understand their own situation before he can find a way to make the house his again.

A River Dream
by Allen Say
Ages 7-10, Houghton Mifflin, 1988, 0-395-48294-1, $14.95
Sick in bed, young Mark falls asleep and wakes up ³to a secret place on a sparkling river,² where he finds his Uncle Scott waiting to take him trout fishing. The river is not only beautiful in its natural wonder, but becomes a place a shared learning as Mark discovers how fragile place is and how the life of it can be so easily damaged.

Roxaboxen
by Alice McLerran, illustrated by Barbara Cooney
Ages 7-10, Lothrop, 1991, 0-688-07592-4, $14.95
Set in the American southwest, this story of a group of children focuses on their creation of a world on a rocky hill not far from their homes. Endowed with their imagination, the sand and greasewood and ocotillo become a wondrous place in which they build a city where they find treasures and create stores and even ride horses. They realize that it was a special place long before them, and, in the conclusion of the book, come to see that it remains a special place years after they have all left.

A Rumbly Tumbly Glittery Gritty Place
by Mary Lyn Ray illustrated by Douglas Florian
Ages 3-8, Harcourt Brace, 1993, 0-15-292861-8, $13.95
Through the eyes of a young girlıs imagination, what might be seen by some as an ugly gravel pit becomes instead a wonderful place, a mountain, a great collection of rocks, a beach without an ocean, an album criss-crossed by the tracks of animals. The illustrations recall a childıs drawings, an effect heightened by the hand-lettered text which appears all around the pages. This book suggests that special places are idiosyncratic; not everyone will see or understand them.

Secret Places
edited by Charlotte Huck, illustrated by Lindsay Barrett George
Ages 4-12, Greenwillow, 1993, 0-688-11669-8, $15.00
This collection of poems brings together prominent childrenıs poets like Myra Cohn Livingston, David McCord, and Aileen Fisher. Each of the poems celebrates a secret and special place, sometimes pictured as a real site‹say, under the shrubbery‹and sometimes pictured as a secret place of the mind. The illustrations are evocative and colorful, designed to capture and delight the eye.

Tar Beach
by Faith Ringgold
Ages 6-10, Crown, 1991, 0-517-58030-6, $15.00
In this exuberant and magical tale, young Cassie flies over Tar Beach, near the George Washington Bridge, and virtually sings with joy, for all that she sees is hers‹from buildings to the lights on the bridge. She especially imagines flying over and owning all the buildings her father works on, so that he will not have to worry about money and her mother will not cry. This is a song of a book, a paean to a childıs imagination and sensitivity.

Time of Wonder
by Robert McCloskey
Ages 8-10, Viking, 1957, 0-670-71512-3, $14.95
This lyrical celebration of life on an island in Penobscot Bay focuses on a single summer which the McCloskey family spends out on its island. A poetic text moves from the beauty of a still day through the dangerous ferocity of an ocean storm, always focusing on the sense of wonder that nature on this small island inspires.

The Three Golden Keys
by Peter Sís
Ages 8 up, Doubleday, 1994, 0-385-47292-7, $19.95
This tour of Prague begins with an aerial view of the city on the title page and Sísıs prefatory letter to his young daughter, Madeleine, for whom the book was written. In it, he shares Prague as he experienced it as a child, presenting his story in a dream-like framework. His intricate pictures capture the many layers of remembered times, places, and feelings.

Time to Go
by Beverly and David Fiday, illustrated by Thomas B. Allen
Ages 5-10, Harcourt Brace, 1990, 0-15-200608-7, $14.95
Papa calls the young boy to the car and he gets in, ready to leave the family farm, but vowing that someday he will return. But before he goes, he lets his mind travel over the empty house, the silent fields, the quiet henhouse, the empty barn. The quietly toned illustrations capture the desolation of the young boy, but also his resolve that he will return to this special place.

A Tree Place and Other Poems
by Constance Levy illustrated by Robert Sabuda
Ages 7-10, McElderry Books, 1994, 0-689-50599-X, $12.95
In this collection of forty poems, Levy dwells on the surprising beauties of the natural world, showing a reader not how to take control of a place, but how to enjoy and learn from and be delighted by a place. Her language is accessible, the rhythms gentle, the images vivid, such as ³this shell that holds a sunset.²

The Wall
by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Ronald Himler
Ages 5-10, Clarion Books, 1990, 0-395-51588-2, $13.95
In a quiet voice, this story tells of a young boy and his father who travel to the Vietnam War Memorial to find the name of the boyıs grandfather. The simplicity of the text and illustrations is moving and suggestive of the destructiveness of war as well as the continuity of life.

When I Was Young in the Mountains
by Cynthia Rylant illustrated by Diane Goode
Ages 7- 12, Dutton, 1982, 0-525-42525-X, $12.95
This celebration of growing up in Appalachia focuses on the small details that a young child would recall‹the johnny cake, the outhouse, the smell of sweet butter, the snake in the yard, crying at a baptism. Hardship is here, but so is joy in the closeness of the grandparents and children. The book reflects a sense of family commitment, as well as simple wonder at the beauty of the world all around, bound by the mountains.