Andrew Henry's Meadow, Doris Burn

Andrew Henry's Meadow
Doris Burn
ISBN: 9780399256080
Read Feb 24, 2014

Another "classic" that I somehow never heard of.  I know I read a lot as a child, but I'm beginning to think that I just read the same few approved Christian books over and over and over again.  That and Childcraft and Disney storybooks.

This book is also a bit of an interesting case - apparently the original has much more intricate illustrations (which is frankly hard to believe given the ones seen in this edition) that were altered/zoomed in for the re-print.  Regardless, they are still nifty, and have lots of nice pen-and-ink scratchy illustrated details for readers to pore over.

Andrew Henry is an inventor, and he's also a middle child - his older sisters don't really want to associate with him, and his little brothers are too little to really be interested in his inventions.  So he runs away and creates a house for himself in a nearby meadow.  What's really interesting is that like flies to a honeypot, a collection of neighbor kids begin arriving in the same meadow - girls and boys alike - united in their need to have a place of their own to engage with their hobbies and interests.  Andrew Henry accomodates them all with a series of incredibly awesome personalized houses, and they live happily in their meadow for 4 days until their frantic families search them out and return them back home.

For Andrew Henry, his family gives him part of the basement for his workshop, and become much more invested in paying attention to him and his inventions.

(I would love to see a full-length children's novel or film written out that combines this and the picture book Roxaboxen, and Weslandia.  It would be epic.  Parents would freak, and kids everywhere would be so happy.

This book was recommended by The Read-Aloud Handbook