Oh Give Me a Home - by Jane Kurtz (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From Author Jane Kurtz, winner of the School Library Journal Best Of The Year and numerous other awards.

In verse, Oh Give Me a Home relates the story of a girl's inside-out view of America as she journeys from Ethiopia, searches for friends and belonging.

Kirkus Starred Review

Selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Book.

In elementary school, Jane knows that Maji, Ethiopia, cool and green, perched on a mountainside of waterfalls and monkeys, is the perfect place to live. Or it would be perfect if she had a pet or a best friend.

Jane is full of ideas that include schemes for an animal to play with. A real pet, not the dik dik that dies, the monkey that tries to bite her fingers, nor the elusive cat that lives in the shed and has just absconded with her litter of kittens. But her plans are derailed as Jane learns she is to move back to America with her family.

America and Africa collide as Jane tries to answer the simple question, "Where am I from?" Entering grade school in suburban America for the first time, will she find a best friend a continent away from her real life in Africa? Or is America-where she meets her relatives for laughter and frolicking and big holiday meals-her real home?

Review Quotes

"Free verse perfectly captures Janie's thought processes--wistful, scattered, at once self-centered and keenly attuned to others' emotions. This youthful perspective makes Kurtz's recollections from years ago feel fresh and immediate. A buoyant, beautiful explication of cultural adjustment as seen through a child's eyes." -- Kirkus

"Jane Kurtz's touching memoir in verse Oh Give Me a Home is about belonging and sisterhood. [...] Her examinations of the world through small creatures are [...] examples of the purity of her perspective, as when she refers to a toy dinosaur as a "prehistoric pet." Intelligible and swift, it's a steady, introspective text that showcases profound personal changes and family love. Oh Give Me a Home is a tender and accessible memoir centered in growing up in a changing world." -- Foreword Reviews

About the Author

Jane Kurtz is an award-winning author of more than forty children's books. She lived in Ethiopia from the age of two where family members worked for nearly thirty years. Currently, Jane is an adviser to Ethiopia Reads and is the creative director of the Open Hearts Big Dreams book program and lives in Portland, Oregon.