Author: Lisa Desimini

“April showers bring May flowers.” Is that how the saying goes?

For April, and as we have entered spring and the cycles of rebirth this brings, Pre K Scholars would like to direct your attention to the fabulous children’s book, My House, written and illustrated by Lisa Desimini. Lisa has creatively depicted the seasonal changes and differences within our environment throughout the year.

Pre K Scholars is built around the concept of community with the fictional town of Scholarville. Exploring this concept a bit farther, what is the central part of each community? It’s the home!

Lisa beautifully exemplifies how, although the environment around the house changes, the house itself remains the same. There is the underlying theme she brilliantly illustrates and that is: A home is always a home. This is a stable and comfortable feeling for young children who are leaving home to attend school for the first time.

Lisa is known for exploring new mediums, and that is just what she has done in creating her illustrations for My House. She mixes paint, collage and photographs to make wonderful variations on the home scene. Her illustrations evoke different emotions that associate nicely with each weather pattern. One page reads, “It gets dressed in the fall,” illustrated by a house covered in a myriad of fall leaves, some of which are still floating in the air. The scene offers a genuine sense of fall, and this continues throughout the book.

Lisa also introduces the reader to some spectacular language. For example, she writes, “the sunlight shimmers and sizzles in the summer, the house is crowned by clouds.” With introductions to vocabulary like “fog,” “daybreak,” “dusk,” “shadows” and the like, My House offers a perfect springboard for lessons in seasons, weather, solar systems, plant/tree cycles and much more!

One thing is for sure: you won’t be disappointed if you choose to read My House—it may even inspire you and your child to create an art collage of your own house! Enjoy!

For more information on the Lisa Desimini, check out her website at www.lisadesimini.com.

Update: A response from the author

Dear Students at Prekscholars,

I am so happy you are reading My House.

It is one of my favorite books. I cut out pictures from magazines and made xerox’s of my own photographs
to make the collages. I painted some of the backgrounds too.

For the image of, “My house shimmers and sizzles on hot summer days,” I took a picture of the ocean from a pier. The sun was reflecting on the surface
and i thought it looked shimmery.

The background for, “and gets lost in the snow,” is a picture of a sea lion swimming underwater. I thought if I blew it up on a xerox machine the bubbles would look like snow at night. If you look closely you can see his whiskers peeking out from behind the house.

I hope you enjoy the book!

Sincerely,

Lisa Desimini