The word “home” means many different things to different people. To answer the question of what home means to you, think about these questions. Where is your home? Home can be a city or town, a neighborhood or a particular address, current or past. Home for some is in the city, for others the country. Maybe both the city and country for those who live on the road. What is your home? The physical structure of home might be a house, an apartment building, an igloo, a mobile home or a boat. For our animal friends, home might be a nest, a web, a shell, an ocean, a forest, a desert. The following books about houses and homes show how people and animals all around the world live.

In If You Lived Here: Houses of the World by Giles Laroche learn about different types of houses like a dogtrot log house. If you lived in one, you’d have to walk outside to get from your bedroom to the kitchen. Would you like to catch fish from your bedroom window? If you lived in a palafito, you’d be able to!

Listen to Our World by Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson shows how various animals define their home or their world. For example, for a family of elephants, the grassland is their world. Who finds home in a giant cactus?

The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson is a quiet cumulative narrative that begins with a key to a house and ends with a home full of light. Perfect for a gentle ending to the day through a  bedtime story.

Home by Carson Ellis features beautiful illustrations of homes, both fanciful (a shoe) and realistic (an artist’s studio). He asks the reader “Where is your home? Where are you?”

No matter where we live, one thing that we all have in common is that home can always be found wherever our favorite people, family, or friends are gathering. It’s where our heart is.