PPBF – Old Blue is My Home

Regular readers know that I often read and review picture books that deal with concepts of home. Today’s Perfect Picture Book showcases a type of home that may be unfamiliar to many children, but that also featured in my review last week.

Title: Old Blue is My Home

Written & Illustrated By: Lita Judge

Publisher/Date: Abram’s Books for Young Readers/2025

Suitable for Ages: 4-8, and older

Themes/Topics: housing insecurity, moving, family, autobiography, home

Opening:

Old Blue doesn’t go as fast as other cars, but together, we go everywhere.

Brief Synopsis: A young narrator and her family live in their old blue van.

Links to Resources:

·      Draw a picture of your home or describe it with words. How is your home the same as or different than the old blue van?

·      Try some of these camping activities;

·      Describe in words or pictures a car journey you and your family have taken.

Why I Like this Book:

With sparse, lyrical text and expressive watercolor and colored pencil illustrations, Judge describes the pluses, and minuses, of living in an old blue van.

As the action begins, readers see the narrator and her family traveling “everywhere” in their old blue van. At the end of the day, the family sits “under the stars” and eats “warm soup”. Sounds like something any family might do while experiencing nature together during a camping trip.

But when readers turn the page, we encounter a cozy scene that shows the family sleeping in Old Blue with the revealing text, “Old Blue is my home.” Thankfully, the title warned us to expect this. But the juxtaposition of the cozy scene with the startling text caused me to pause and wonder how many families experience similar living situations.

Instead of bemoaning her living situation, the narrator proceeds to show readers the positives of van life, including a “cozy library” to read “favorite books” to the family dog. Even when it rains, the narrator and her family seem content.

But then we turn the page to learn that “sometimes living in Old Blue makes me feel like I’m from everywhere and belong nowhere.”

Ouch! As a serial mover, I can relate. I know my children often have felt similarly (even though we never lived in our car). To experience schoolmates unwilling to include her in play dates because of her living situation makes the narrator’s situation that much more poignant.

Thankfully, it’s clear that the narrator’s family is caring, and the story ends on a note of hope. I only hope that other children living in similar circumstances experience a happy ending, too.

Whether to show children in like circumstances that they are not alone or to help children better understand the lives of housing insecure classmates or relatives, I highly recommend reading and discussing Old Blue is My Home at home or in classrooms. You may want to pair it with I Know How to Draw an Owl, which deals with a similarly-situated child.

A Note about Craft:

Judge addresses a tough topic, housing insecurity, that she herself experienced as a child, using first-person point-of-view. This choice helps readers empathize with the unnamed narrator, as we experience van life through her eyes. Interestingly, the text contains no dialogue, helping the reader feel as if the child is addressing them directly.

This Perfect Picture Book entry is being added to Susanna Hill’s Perfect Picture Book list. Check out the other great picture books featured there!