Coming Home

Ruth, G. (2014). Coming Home. New York: Feiwel and Friends.

Readability lexile: N/A

Summary:

This raw and emotional book is about a young boy who is at the airport waiting for his mother to return home from war. Before he finds his mother, he sees everyone else's emotional return, and hopes to find her soon. 

Evaluation:

This book I believe has a good variety of people of all colors. It is hard to decipher if all the socio-economic classes are present. The illustrations are what gives the book its high quality literature. It really conveys the emotion and feeling that is happening in the book. There are not many words in this text, but that almost adds to the mood. The storyline singles out what it really feels like to not have seen a loved one after they have been on deployment. The relationships illustrated in the book are all different types of relationships, which allows the reader to be apart of it. This book would be great for a young reader to learn about deployment and what it is like for families. 

Literary Elements:

1. Setting: The airstrip at a airport.

2. Tone: The raw and emotional returns of soldiers to their loved ones.  

3. Characters: The boy child, his mother, a dog, and all of the other soldiers and their families. 

Mini-Lesson:

This book would be great to use around Veteran's Day or Memorial Day. It would provide an opportunity to young readers to honor the service men and women that are fighting or serving overseas, and are away from their loved ones. 

Target Audience: PreK-3

My personal reaction to this book was that I thought it was raw and emotional. Even with few words, I was wrapped up in the boys quest to find his mother return home from war. The illustrations are what made the book. The expressions on the faces were created just so the reader knew what they were feeling at that exact moment.