At Home in a Faraway Place
by Lynne Rae Perkins; illus. by the author
Intermediate    Greenwillow    128 pp.
3/25    9780063378421    $19.99
e-book ed.  9780063378452    $9.99

Lissie travels with her father and grandma to a distant country, where volcanoes overlook the city and the residents speak Spanish. Though initially nervous about the long journey (“We flew on three different airplanes to get there”) and the unfamiliar destination, and thanks in large part to the warm welcome by her father’s longtime friend Raúl, Lissie quickly finds commonalities with new acquaintances. Lissie’s engagement with Spanish partially drives the narrative, and she is portrayed as listening closely to gauge the meanings of unknown words and excitedly asking for translations. Chapters are numbered in Spanish, and pronunciation keys of words and phrases she encounters, such as “buenos días” and “el desayuno,” are appended to each chapter and accompanied by line illustrations. Spot art and double-page spreads appear throughout (final art unseen) and feature panels and speech bubbles to highlight the cityscape and meaningful interactions. Perkins does not specify the country they visit, but mentions of pupusas, Mayan history, and the ancient pyramids in Tikal signal a Guatemalan setting. With vignettes both lighthearted and profound (“It made me think that maybe there are a lot of different ways to make a house”), the story also strikes a resonant note of cultural sensitivity when Lissie’s grandma refers to the ancients who built the pyramids as “people who just disappeared” and a local guide gently replies: “We’re still here.”

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.