What you know first

I could
If I wanted
Tell Mama and Papa that I won’t go.
I won’t go, I’ll say,
To a new house,
To the new place,
To a land I’ve never seen.

A little girl must leave her cherished home on the prairie. But how can she say good’bye to all the things she loves — the endless sky, the ocean of grass, her cottonwood tree? Papa says she’ll never forget her birthplace, but she wants to make sure. So before they go, she finds a special way to carry with her a part of what she knew first.
Patricia MacLachlan’s touching words and Barry Moser’s striking engravings will touch the heart of anyone who has ever had to leave a beloved place.

«The spare text and haunting engravings are poignantly nostalgic. . . . No one will fail to appreciate the gentle flow of words and understated sentiments.»
—Kirkus Reviews

«This book is like a poem, a hymn to the known world in the face of the unknown.»
—The Philadelphia Inquirer