The Blue House

Like many of us, Leo doesn’t like change. He doesn’t want to say goodbye to his family home after the landlord sells it and he and his father have to move. His home is perfect the way it is. Why would the landlord have to tear it down and build a newer home? Many families face the same problem nowadays and the anger and hurt are difficult to deal with.

The Blue House is a heartwarming story of a father helping his son to accept a difficult situation. Instead of getting frustrated at his son’s angry response, he supports his son through the range of emotions associated with unfairness, loss and grief. He takes the time to sit on the beach with Leo, ice cream in hand, in order to break the bad news. He acknowledges his son’s feelings by stating his own similar disappointment - “I’m angry too”. My favorite scene is when the two of them have a rage session with father “shredding” on the guitar and the son jumping on the couch and screaming into a hairbrush. Even the cat has a concerned look on his face. Everything the father does helps Leo feel “a little less mad”. After they have packed boxes, Leo and his father say goodbye to the house by painting bright flowers and birds on the walls of the soon-to-be-torn-down house.

In the new home, Leo’s dad tells him it’s okay when Leo states, “I hate it.” While dad reads a book on his son’s bed, waiting for him to fall asleep, Leo suggests painting the empty walls. They paint the blue house with the cat and trees on his wall, brightening up the room and making them feel “a little more at home.” Baking a pie together, an activity they did in the old house to warm it up, helps them bond further with their new home. The story ends with joyful dancing and singing as Leo acknowledges that the new house “was becoming theirs, too”.

The illustrations are warm and inviting. It recalls a time 30 years ago when record players and brick fireplaces with real fires were still used. Realistic and detailed, the illustrations include a bird’s-eye view of the neighborhood with the house being torn down and new ones being built. The pictures give the parents an opportunity to talk with their child(ren) about the lifestyle of not-so-long-ago, a time when growing tomatoes and sunflowers in backyard gardens and hanging wet laundry to dry on outdoor lines were normal. The only out of place image is when the father talks on the modern smartphone instead of on a rotary phone, making the reader wonder if this is a 2020 tale of a father raising a son in a traditional way with no tv or screens and when bedtime stories were still commonplace.