Growing Home, by Beth Ferry (Simon & Schuster, 2025, $17.99, 272pp HB, ages 7-9, grades 1-4), a Barnes and Noble Children's Book of the Year for 2025 and co-illustrated by brothers Terry and Eric Fan
Even today, in October 2026, when you wander through a Barnes and Noble store, you will be inundated with the front cover of Growing Home and rightly so. We finally were able to review a copy and were we ever glad we did!
For middle-schoolers, it can be a long book of 71 chapters! But the chapters are short so a young girl or boy can take these animal and plant friends along and sneak in a chapter or two on the sly. Parents will get the characters a bit mixed up what with the human names for them, with the exception of the ivy plant named Ivy. We have a grumpy goldfish Toasty, a traveling spider Arthur, Ollie the violet (misnamed however, it is obvious) and some nefarious humans, along with an 8-sided fish tank, a marvelous bird cage and a break-in.
The story will remind you of Mary Poppins with the adventures in the possible setting of London. Each character has a slight superpower but has to discover it and they don't start out as friends but learn along the way to use their powers for the 'good of the order.'
No comments:
Post a Comment