Raise the Roof!

By Anastasia Suen

Book Overview

Grab your tool kit and put on your hard hat-there's a house to build! It starts with drawing up the floor plans and ends with laying down a welcome mat, but in between there are lots of things to do. Children will love following all the steps as bulldozers clear the land and cement mixers pour the foundation. Then it's time to put up the walls, install the plumbing, nail down the roof shingles, and hang the doors. Bright, humorous illustrations capture all the details around the construction site as a busy family lends a hand (and sometimes a paw!) to build their dream house. Illustrated by Elwood H. Smith.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670892823
• ISBN13: 9780670892822
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Viking Childrens Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.3" x 0.5" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 2 to 6 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 1

Customer Reviews

A Delightful, Stylish Tale with Energy and Verve.

I loved the look of "Raise the Roof!": It has the energy of 1930's Disney animation, and a scruffy energy that made me think of a very sanitized R. Crumb. The pictures and the "cast" have an original, rhythmic feel to them, it's as if the pictures rhyme as well as the words! We start with eventually turns out as a trick. A couple very busily draw blueprints, while their dog holds a portfolio titled "doghouse plans," and a book, "How to Build a Doghouse" lies on the floor next to his food bowl. Wacky geometrically-shaped details decorate each picture: Sharp-edged bushes, circular flowers that look like wood, and every where dots andtiny circles that add texture and the aforementioned scruffy dynamism to the backgrounds. The people and their dog have that rounded, puffy look that makes them look energetic and slightly unpredictable, as if they're going to burst out in song at any minute. Illustrator Elwood H. Smith varies the perspective, from scene-setting longshots to close-ups (likea series of pipes) that are almost abstract. Anastasia Suen's verse is tightly constructed and similarly energetic. She describes the house-building with enough detail to make it realistic, but leaves out unessential descriptions that would dilute her focused story-telling. She introduces various subcontractors (e.g., an electrician, the cement guy) to increase interest, and, most importantly, makes the dog a co-equal in the house building. (even though, he's sometimes a little mixed-up!) Still, there's an interesting incongruity that young audiences might begin to detect: We saw that this was planned as a doghouse, and the pooch even dreams of one, but the interior and exterior dimenstions look awfully dog-gone big! "Put in sinks" (there's a great detail of the dog straining at a wrench) and "set the tile" (here the dog gets his paw stuck to one), "roll out carpet mile by mile." What kind of a doghouse is this, anyway? Suen and Smith answer this on the last few pages, and anyone who has a dog will smile in recognition. WARNING, SPOILER AHEAD: They've built both a full size house AND a doghouse, but it's clear where the spirited dog will live: He sleeps in the big house with his people, and there's a "FOR RENT" sign on the little doghouse next to it! This is a fun, good-natured, and cleverly humorous book that excels in both story and illustration.

House Goes Up.....

"Make a plan. Count the feet. Clear the land on this street..." It's time to raise the roof and build that dream house. From the planning, pouring concrete, sawing and hammering wood, laying pipes and wiring, to drywalling, hanging windows and doors, painting, carpeting and tiling, Anastasia Suen details all the things that need to be done before a house is ready to be lived in. Her rhyming text, written in short, simple sentences is perfect for the youngest "construction workers" always ready to build with pretend tools and hard hats. But it's Elwood Smith's bold, bright, and clever cartoon-like illustrations that really make this picture book a stand out. Each two page spread is rich in vivid color, engaging humor, and wonderful eye-catching details. "Plant the garden. Water the grass. The house is ready. We're done at last!" Raise The Roof is definitely a preschool crowd pleaser.