Where I Live: Poems About My Home, My Street, and My Town
selected by Paul B. Janeczko; illus. by Hyewon Yum
Primary, Intermediate    Candlewick    48 pp.
3/23    9781536200942    $18.99

This collection of variously contemplative and playful poems offers an intimate picture of daily life from a child’s point of view. Thirty-four poems about “Home,” “Street,” and “Town” explore the ever-widening circle of a child’s awareness of community. Various poets capture the rhythm of life inside and out, on the weekend and at bedtime, and through the seasons beginning with X. J. Kennedy’s “Any old place / that’s your home base / is where you want to be.” The collection then heads out into the world with pets, parks, and parties and around town with school, stores, laundromats, and car washes. With its mix of classic works by such poets as Eleanor Farjeon, Myra Cohn Livingston, and Valerie Worth and more contemporary voices including Irene Latham, Janet Wong, and Naomi Shihab Nye, the collection offers a mix of poetic styles—all very accessible to the reader and listener and all unified by Yum’s engaging illustrations in colored pencil and watercolor. Scenes ranging from urban apartment life to small-town backyards and front porches are full of a pleasing diversity of children and adults.

From the March/April 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.