Going Home

• Title: Going Home
• Author: Eve Bunting
• Illustrator: David Diaz
• Publisher: Joanna Cotler Books, HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication year: 1996
• Brief Summary: From HarperCollins-“Christmas is coming, and Carlos and his family are going home—driving south across the border to Mexico. But Mexico doesn’t seem like home to Carlos, even though he and his sisters were born there. Can home be a place you don’t really remember?”
• Ideas for using this book in classroom or library – I found this very extensive lesson plan guide from the website Collaborative Classroom which aims to teach children the “big ideas” of our relationship to home, family relationships, and goals/ambitions (such as dreams or goals may help us to get through difficult situations).
• Whatever additional notes you’d like to add about this book and why you liked or didn’t like it – While Bunting is a white writer, I am intrigued by Diaz’s illustrations which remind me of the New Deal art of the 1930s (see here on Google image search). I think the vibrant backgrounds add to the overall look of the picture book. Each illustration is in a frame with a multi-patterned background behind it.