With just a few words per page Coming Home captures the excitement and the anxiety, but mostly the joy, of a military homecoming. An elementary-school-aged boy is waiting at the airport with many other families, all smiling, but with tension showing in their body language. When the plane full of military personnel lands, all the waiting families run out to the runway, and then the hugs and happiness start. As the pages turn the boy witnesses many happy reunions but he gets more anxious as he searches for and fails to find his own loved one.
The warm earth tones of Coming Home’s expressive full-page spreads contrast with the action of the boy’s red shirt. The angles of view highlight his emotions, from the close up of the anxiety on his face to his isolation as he searches through the crowd, to his joy as he finally hugs his loved one.
Coming Home is spare and hopeful in its focus on the short period of the homecoming rather than the long wait. A much darker picture book about a child’s view of military deployment is Year of the Jungle, by The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins. Coming Home is a great book to be shared with any lap-sized child, either a small military child or any child who has ever waited for anything and finally got their heart’s desire.
If you are interested in other books about military family lifestyles, look at my website Books for Military Children.
Check the WRL catalog for Coming Home.
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