Croza, Laurel. I Know Here. Illustrated by Matt James. Groundwood Books, 2010. ISBN 9780888999238. $18.95. 32 p.
Reviewer: Carla Kupitz
Reading level: All
Rating: Outstanding
Genre: Picture books;
Subject: Moving, Household--Juvenile fiction; Individuality--Juvenile fiction; Families--Canada--Juvenile fiction; Books--Reviews;
A little girl lives with her family in a remote area of Canada while her father works on a dam. The dam is almost finished and the family will move to Toronto. The little girl does not know Toronto--she only knows here. Here is a group of trailers surrounded by wilderness and wild animals. Here is where the little girl attends school in a trailer with eight other students. Here is where the grocery truck stops and where her friends run home from school for lunch. Here is what the little girl will draw. She will show her picture to her school teacher and then the little girl will fold up her drawing and take it with her to Toronto.
Winner of the 2010 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the text is sparse and the illustrations are naive--echoing the pureness of a child and the wilderness she knows--simple, yet complex. This is a book that wants to be read and examined again and again.
Volume 31, no. 2 (November/December 2010)
