Book Description

for Beti and the Little Round House by Atinuke and Emily Hughes

From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

Biracial Beti (Black/white) “lives in a little round house in a green woods under the mountains. She lives with Mam and Tad and baby Jac.” A similar refrain opens each of the four episodic chapters in a story following Beti’s life in the forest with her family over a single year. In spring Beti gets a goat for her birthday, but it comes with a troublesome baby who ruins Beti’s birthday party. Still, Beti is heartbroken when “Naughty,” as she names the baby goat, temporarily disappears. In summer, Beti and her friends accidentally spill the big heavy water urn that Mam and Tad fill each morning. Then they problem-solve, figuring out how to fill it again all by themselves. In autumn, after helping Tad, Beti gets separated from him during a storm. She finds shelter in the barn, and comfort with Naughty. In winter, while Tad is away, Beti doesn’t shut the field gate and the horses get out. With Mam and Jac sick, Beti rounds them up by herself in the middle of the night, despite her fear of the dark. Cozy full color, full-page illustrations and spot black-and-white art grace this charming book for reading aloud or independently. The idyllic setting (no electricity or phones by choice) is balanced by realistically childlike behavior. In a note, author Atinuke describes living in a simple roundhouse in the woods in Wales when her son was a toddler, adding that around the world many people live “simply on the land.”