In Welcome to the Wonder House, a book of poetry by noted poets Georgia Heard and Rebecca Kai Dotlich, readers are invited to explore twelve rooms filled with poems and objects. The poems will inspire creativity and wonder in young readers. In each room, readers can become historians, scientists, mathematicians, astronauts, architects, geologists, artists or writers while contemplating topics such as nature, space and ancient history, as well as ordinary items. For example, in the Curiosity Room, poems and yellow tinted and cream-colored pictures of dinosaur fossils, planets and meteor collisions spark readers’ interests in natural resources and planets. The poem titles demonstrate the span of resources: Why do diamonds wink / and shine?/ What is quartz?/ What is lime? / What fossils still / sleep underground? / How does our Earth keep spinning around? (p. 4). In the Nature Room, readers explore a stormy sky with rain and thunder: Thunder drums the skin of sky, / striking / an / electric / scar / from cloud to cloud. (p. 12). All poems cover science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) topics and will be a great addition to STEAM lessons for all age groups.

Poet Rebecca Kai Dotlich grew up in the Midwest exploring nature, reading comic books and creating art. She studied creative writing, art history and anthropology at Indiana University. Rebecca writes books for younger and older readers, such as What is Math? (Dotlich & Yoshikawa, 2022), exploring math applied in everyday lives, and Castle (Lewis & Dotlich, 2016), which contains old stone poems about the history of castles worldwide. Readers can learn more about Rebecca and her books at her website.

Georgia Heard received the NCTE 2023 Excellence in Poetry for Children Award. She earned an M.F.A. in poetry from Columbia University. Georgia is the author of twenty-one books, including My Thoughts Are Clouds: Poems for Mindfulness (Heard & Roxas, 2021), a collection of poems for guided mindfulness, and Boom! Bellow! Bleat!: Animal Poems for Two or More Voices (Heard & DeWitt, 2019), which explores the myriad sounds that animals make. Readers can learn more about Georgia and her books at her website.

The illustrator of this book, Deborah Freedman, lives in Connecticut in a colorful home full of books, art, and wonder. She is a former architect who loves to make picture books. Deborah studied art history in college and then pursued a career in design. Partly Cloudy (2024) is her forthcoming picture book about two curious bunnies that enjoy watching clouds in different ways. Readers can find her book on her website. –Recommended by Junko Sakoi, Tucson, AZ

Title: Welcome to the Wonder House
Authors: Rebecca Kai Dotlich & Georgia Heard
Illustrator: Deborah Freedman
ISBN: 9781635927627
Publisher: Wordsong
PubDate: July 11, 2023

Each month a committee of Worlds of Words advisors recommends a book published within the last year. Our hope is to spark conversations on our website and on social media about the book that expand global understandings and perceptions. Please join us by leaving a comment. You can also share your thoughts with us by using the hashtag #WOWRecommends on social media. Check out our alphabetical listing of all the books featured in WOW Recommends.

array(12) {
  ["_edit_lock"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(14) "1713460754:264"
  }
  ["_edit_last"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(3) "264"
  }
  ["_thumbnail_id"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(5) "28879"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(67) "https://wowlit.org/wp-content/media/welcome-to-the-wonder-house.jpg"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(5) "44843"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(67) "https://wowlit.org/wp-content/media/welcome-to-the-wonder-house.jpg"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(5) "44843"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_focuskw"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(27) "Welcome to the Wonder House"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_metadesc"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(155) "Welcome to the Wonder House is the WOW Recommends for February, a collection of poetry inviting young readers to explore large concepts and everyday items."
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_linkdex"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(2) "88"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_content_score"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(2) "30"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_primary_category"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(4) "3405"
  }
}

• Themes: Deborah Freedman, Georgia Heard, Junko Sakoi, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Welcome to the Wonder House
• Descriptors: WOW Recommends