Nana's Book Library

Age: 3+

Particulars (Out of 5):

• For anyone who has ever moved, no matter what your age ***** 
• Beautiful illustrations ***** 
• Gripper of a story *****
• So sweet ***** 
• Ends right *****
• Inappropriate language:  None.
• Sexual references:  None.  

Reminder:  Nana’s Books are rated G.  Anyone could read them, or listen to them being read aloud or talked about.

Spoiler:  Happy ending!!!  Don’t worry!  It’s going to be okay!  Lily is a sweet little dog who lives with Aunt Eliza.  It’s a true story about the author’s aunt, and is dedicated to her and to the real Lily; the illustrator, William Low, dedicated it to his niece “from Uncle William.”  So sweet!

“Lily is black with soft ears and a stubby tail.  She is just the right size for sitting on Elizas’s lap with a little left over.  Lily and Aunt Eliza have always lived in a small apartment in the city of Boston, and everything has always stayed in its rightful spot, just the way Lily likes it.  The soft blue couch.  The big yellow chair.  The bookcase by the window.  And under the piano, where somedays Lily likes to chew her rubber hedgehog.”

Lily and Eliza go for walks on the sidewalk every morning and evening.  At the end of the block is a little patch of grass.  Lily would like to dig a hole, but she’s not allowed to.  Still, everything is just how Lily likes it. 

Then one terrible morning, everything changes.  Large boxes appear in her room, and Eliza is too busy packing them to play with Lily.  Big men clump in and start taking away all Lily’s familiar things!  The blue couch!  The yellow chair!  The bookcase!  The piano!  “As the room got bigger and bigger, Lily felt smaller and smaller.”  Finally, there is nothing left in the big white room except a little black dog. 

I cried when I read this part the first time, and so did a friend of mine, a young lady with a little brown and white dog who also just moved.  But I repeat: it’s going to be okay!  All the way to Vermont, Lily shivers in the car.  But then… they get to a house in the country!  There’s grass and trees and new smells and maybe a hole to dig!  And inside the house… wait for it…here comes the moving van! And out comes the blue couch!  And the yellow chair, and the piano and the bookcase!  All is well!  It’s home!

I particularly love this book because we read it repeatedly in 1996, when my daughter was nearly three and we were about to move from a rowhouse in Baltimore to a house in the country in Virginia.  She absolutely loved Lily, and later, so did her two brothers.

This book is available used, in paperback and hardcover on Amazon, eBay, Abebooks, and other sites for less than $10.  

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc.