The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding - ADVISABLE

 

The House by the Lake: The True Story of a House by Thomas Harding, illustrated by Britta Teckentrup.  NON-FICTION/PICTURE BOOK $18. 9781536212747 

BUYING ADVISORY:  EL (K-3) – ADVISABLE  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

A man wanted a place for his family to live in Germany away from the city, so he built a home by a lake.  Because the man was Jewish, he had to flee the Nazi’s and the Gestapo took the house. A year later, in 1937, a musical man wanted a place for his young family to live, but they too had to leave the house in order to avoid being drafted to the Nazi army.  The musical man, told a Jewish friend about the abandoned home and the home because a refugee for that couple.  Later, as the Soviets were making their way across Germany, that couple escaped the Russian army.  Then a man moved his family there, and shortly after the Berlin wall was built.  Eventually that man passed and the author of this book, a relative of the first man who built the home, renovated the fifteen-year long abandoned house and made it a “center for education and reconciliation”.  

What an interesting approach to history, to stay in one place and have the story told around the building.  The storyline is brief and quick, but the author’s note provides further interesting facts about the people who lived in the house. The illustrations are in dark tones but echo the feeling of the house as it is changed by the history around it.  Younger readers might need some context to fully understand the story because of the implied understanding of World War II.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson