Where I Live

Table of Contents

 

 

DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

Published by The Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of

Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, II Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pcy) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

Text copyright © 2007 by Eileen Spinelli Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Matt Phelan

All rights reserved

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Text set in Garamond 3

 

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spinelli, Eileen.

Where I live / Eileen Spinelli ; illustrated by Matt Phelan.

p. cm.

Summary: In a series of poems, Diana writes about her life, both

before and after her father loses his job and she and her family

move far away to live with Grandpa Joe.

eISBN : 978-1-101-07826-6

{1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Family life—Fiction.

3. Astronomy—Fiction. 4. Novels in verse.] I. Phelan, Matt, ill.

II. Title.

PZ7.5.S68Wh 2007

[Fic]—dc22

2006030971

This is where I live—
in the yellow house
with the white shutters.
I'm the one who helped plant
the maple tree in the front yard,
the one who waters
the daffodils in the spring,
who rakes the leaves in autumn.
My room is on the second floor.
See my window?
This morning I looked out
and saw my best friend, Rose,
waving to me.
“Wanna ride bikes?” she called.
The sun was shining,
the sky was so blue,
I thought I could swim in it.
My heart was happy.
It's a good day when
the sky is blue
and the sun is bright
and Rose and I have plans.

A wren has made
her nest
in the willow wreath
on our front door.

 

Now the yellow house
is her home
too.

Dear Grandpa Joe,

 

Thank you for
the money you sent.
I am going to buy
paint.
Rose will help me
paint my room.
I'm thinking
midnight blue—
that will go best
with my astronomy charts.
I will send you
a picture of my room
when we finish.

 

Love,
Diana

Grandpa Joe lives far away,
near Pittsburgh.
A six-hour drive.
We don't go very often.
My little sister, Twink,
gets itchy in the car.
Every mile she says:
“I'm hungry!”
“I'm bored!”
“I need to go to the bathroom!”
“Are we there yet?”
I get itchy
just listening to her.
Mostly
Grandpa Joe comes to us.
He's lucky:
no itchy Twink
whining
all the way
from Pittsburgh.

I gave Twink her name.
It used to be Lucy.
But when she was an infant
I sang to her:
“Twinkle, twinkle little star ...”
Over and over.
I wanted to teach her
to love the night sky
as much as I did.
When baby Lucy
finally spoke,
her first word
was not
“Ma-ma” or
“Da-da” or even
“No!”
Baby Lucy's
first word was
“Twink.”

 

“I named you.”
I remind her
often.
She hates when
I do that.
She folds her arms
across her chest
and pouts and says,
“I named myself!”