I found Houses with a Story by Seiji Yoshida listed as a Mildred L. Batchelder (2024) award winner on the TeachingBooks website and borrowed it from my local library. It was also named an ALSC Notable Children’s Book and included on the Publisher’s Weekly Best Books list. Originally published in Japan in 2020, this is a beautiful book that immediately sparked my imagination and excitement. I delighted in looking at each page closely, much like a young child who has just fallen in love with books.
This is truly a book of artwork. It introduces readers to more than 30 imagined houses and the characters who live inside them. The author, Seiji Yoshida, includes illustrations, floor plans, cutaway diagrams, and notes about how the space is used by each unique occupant. Some of my favorite homes included The Dreamer’s Tree House, The Diesel Sisters, The Seven Dwarves’ House, and The House with a Dragon. Yoshida also includes some interesting sidebars such as Examples of Roofs, A Word on Toilets, and a short panel story featuring the man living in the house called The Reserved Mechanic’s Cottage. The book ends with a behind-the-scenes look at how the author approached and created his drawings.
I would most likely use this in a middle school classroom, although it could certainly be used with students both younger and older, depending on the purpose. I feel that this unique book offers many opportunities for students to discover and use their own creativity. My first thought is that students could use this as a mentor text and then create and draw their own house. Just like the author, they would be asked to design their house for a specific character and communicate small details about the character, their past, and how and why they use their particular home. An extension of this would be writing an entire story involving the home and its inhabitant(s).
Similarly, students could borrow one of Yoshida’s characters and write a story about them. They might write about the character’s life before the house, explaining the events that led them to their unique space. This could also become a project connecting to identity, in which students create a fantasy home for themselves. Students could also explore how the environment each house is in helps to shape it and the lives of those who dwell in it. Another idea is a research extension. Some houses mention different materials or cultural designs. Students can look up real buildings or traditions that are similar and write a short report to connect what they learned in the book to real life. Finally, this text could launch a discussion around the types of homes typically included in stories. Students could talk about whose homes and stories are usually shown in books, and how Yoshida creates new kinds of spaces that include different people and ideas. This could then be broadened into a larger discussion about whether the texts we read include enough diversity of all types.