Relic of Good Days

When I was "told" my theme would be "Home Sweet Home" in my 5th unit of study in 1st grade I thought of this book. Though I am not asked to think of anything. We read it for years gone by in primary classroom instruction, and I ordered it again to read when I had a moment for this unit. That time came today as the children in Room 10 listened for our "key vocabulary" and were enchanted as children have been since the 1940's release of a story about a house becoming obsolete, aging, being replaced by future building while in her day representing the best of her times and quite possibly representing a kind of beauty that can only be understood and appreciated within her true and original context.

This is a story of a beautiful Little House written by the genius of Virginia Lee Burton. She sits "way out in the country" built strong and sturdy, never to be sold for generations of a family to endure within her safe haven. She is happy, she is stable, but she "sees" the lights of the city and she is curious. At this point I feel it safe to interject as a young girl growing up in West Virginia far from city and growing up in the peace of country these words spoke to my heart. I wondered about the city too, wanted to know. I saw the changes in my world, saw future, recall first days seeing a tape recorder, recall the ideas of fast food and the movement of our life into the age of rocket and moon. A great story to explore metaphor with children. How are we like the Little House, how am I?

In the story the Little House watched the seasons, learned the cycles of nature and the book does such a lovely job placing the child reader or listener into this rural setting. For me it is a perfect telling of the naive Garden of Eden before the Fall construct, gamboling, rural, naturalistic with the seasons each illustrated and reinforced with charming traditional illustration for the child. But as the story unfolds the lights of city grow closer with changes entering text and illustration. I grew up with many of these changes, but it tells of horses replaced by roads and machine....Time is passing in the story, an age of mechanized progress enters the pictures.
Gasoline, speed, faster and faster are introduced as concepts that drive the forward progress around the Little House. She is now shown surrounded by track homes, darker clouds, and telephone poles. Crowding enters the page. Artistically it is busy, congested, more active visually, less peaceful. Now the Little House can't be sold, not because of the eternity of a family staying on her piece of land, but because a city has engulfed her and she has no worth relative to the expansion. She sits surrounded now pictorially by building. Written as it is, my classroom children found this "sad", or asked repeatedly if she would "die". I kept saying let's wait a bit and see....but I knew their concern. It would seem headed for sad death. If I were to relate to the Little House metaphorically I feel myself as a teacher as these pages represent, surrounded by the mindless march of time. Looked at as valueless, seen as out of place in a world of "progress". And the Little House misses her fields and flowers accepts this must be "the city" and wonders if she likes it or not.

I must admit I did stop reading here to ask children if they thought this was the life the Little House was "supposed " to live. One child speaking carefully said, " It is the life that she must accept." Another commented, "I know the Little House wanted to see the city but now she can't go back." Such it is when we leave Eden, such it is when the march of progress strips our naivety. Such is taking on our adulthood. Now we are to reconcile truth, reflect, make meaning and find ways to face what we must. To decide based on our rational mind combined with an awareness of things we could never have fathomed and indeed may not understand fully once revealed. The Little House stands swallowed by city, speed, time, and unable to feel season or know her truths at all.

Buildings are torn, replaced and destroyed around he....r as progress destroys what was replacing it with what is. Here my students shook with, "Oh no's" and statements like this one, "Oh she's going to die and never know her happiness." It is a point of despair, and interesting thing to place before children. Certainly this is the point in the story that I feel speaks with greatest power. And she decides that she cannot like this place that has grown around her. She has no way to relate to it. It is not a city able to even remotely understand what this Little House knew. Not even listening they are of two different worlds. And she admits sadness. She is filled with sorrow and becomes really broken down and lost.

The ending of the story is about hope. A many generation removed child of this house buys her again, restores and moves her far from city, back to country where she takes her knowledge within her walls and in the calm of the beauty of nature silently resumes her peaceful balance. Once more able to be who she is. Understanding in some way where she has been. Understanding now no longing for that other place. She has conquered longing.

To this tale my students sat in silence and in contemplation. I asked if they would like to draw this little house and all students, all, represented her in the country, in bucolic setting and at the bottom all wrote Home at Peace a phrase they asked me to spell. I'll post these when I find the digital camera. It's a wonderful story fit for any 1st grade as relevant now as ever.

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Excellent Resource!

This is a classic story of a little house that experiences both country and city life! I am a first grade student teacher who used this book and tape as a motivator for my lesson on city life vs. country life. The book is a classic story that I remember as a child! The illustrations are wonderful and the tape enhances the story by using sound effects. My students LOVED it!!

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Great illustrations. great moral...

My 3 year old son loves this book. It's a little lengthy for his age, but he still sits still for the whole thing. Beautiful illustrations with a great message on urbanization. Especially nice for children who live in a country setting as it does tend to make cities out to be dirty noise machines.

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