Going Home Book Review

Going Home is a lovely children's book (ages 4 to 8) that can be easily divided as the child's learning progresses making it a book they can grow with. The initial introduction follows a rhyming verse that easily rolls off the tongue:

Going home, going home,
We feel the urge to go.
It's time for us to travel on,
It's something we just know.
Many of us look for food,
Others find a mate.
And when the weather starts to change,
There's no time to wait.

It continues on for eleven more double pages following a varied selection of animals and providing an introduction to their migration habits. The interesting animals include: loggerhead turtles, monarch butterflies, manatees, ruby-throated hummingbirds, Pacific salmon, Canada geese, California gray whales, caribou, arctic terns, and emperor penguins. It concludes with a visual summary of all the animals migrating patterns.

Each animal gets a two page spread with beautiful semi-realistic visuals of their appearance and their habitat. Accompanying each animal's poem is a brief summary of the animal's migration habits. This can be read along with the poem or at another time. It's almost like having two books in one.

The last few pages of Going Home offer suggestions to use the book as a learning tool as well as recommended books/viewing for further education. This is followed by further insight into the habits of the featured migrating animals.

The book is a nice size (10.5" x 9") that is large enough to provide a nice visual but small enough for a child to comfortably hold.

As an adult I enjoyed the images and reading the creative and informative material presented. I would recommend Going Home as a delightful introduction to new animals and the concept of animal migration but also as a great gift for any child reader who loves animals.