These links show the original reading lists. Inclusion is not a guarantee of suitability for your child.
Kate Milner - Author
A reflective picture book about leaving home and adjusting to an unfamiliar journey. Its mother’s reassuring voice offers steadiness, while the illustrations and repeated questions leave room to notice uncertainty, loss, hope and the child’s perspective.
A child is told that he and his mother must leave home, travel and find a new home.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: The book presents this mainly as information or explanation.
Talk about: How does the child’s understanding of home and belonging change, if it changes, during the journey?
Care and reassurance
The mother prepares her son for what they will experience and tells him they will be all right while facing a challenge.FavourableFavourable: the book presents this theme approvingly or positively.Favourable: the book presents this theme approvingly or positively.
How the book presents it: The book presents this favourably.
Talk about: What does the mother say or do that helps the child face uncertainty, and whether does he experience her reassurance as sufficient?
Words, pictures and perspective
The words reassure the boy, while the illustrations show more of the reality of leaving and travelling.Exploratory / explanatoryExploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.Exploratory / explanatory: the book explains or explores the subject without an established evaluative position.
How the book presents it: The contrast encourages readers to interpret what may sit beneath spoken reassurance and to consider the child’s experience through both modes.
Talk about: What might the illustrations communicate that the spoken words do not, and whether might different readers interpret that contrast differently?
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Why It May Be Worth Reading
It can open a conversation about how people experience major change without reducing the child to sadness alone. Reading the words and pictures together may help families discuss reassurance, uncertainty and what a welcoming new home might mean.
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What Deserves Attention
Pay attention to the contrast between comforting explanations and images that show more of the journey’s reality. Farewells, leaving home, extended walking and difficult moments may merit a pause, particularly if displacement is personally relevant.
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A Conversation Worth Having
How might the child understand the mother’s reassurance while seeing unfamiliar or difficult things? Which questions does the book leave open about belonging, identity and beginning again somewhere new?
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Reading Approach
Read a few pages at a time and let the child study both words and illustrations. Use the book’s questions as invitations rather than tests, and allow a pause or change of subject if the journey feels close to home.
Confidence & Basis
Theme indicators describe how the book presents a topic; they are not a verdict on the whole book or your family's values. Confidence reflects how much book-specific material was checked. Only part of the book information was available, so some details remain unconfirmed.
What remains unconfirmed
Leaving home and belonging: The ending and the child’s longer-term adjustment are not described in enough detail to assess them.
Care and reassurance: The supplied details do not establish every aspect of their relationship or the child’s response at the conclusion.
Words, pictures and perspective: Some details of this treatment remain unclear.
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