Five-minute digest
The Little House
Summary
The Little House is a picture book about a small pink house built by a man on a little hill far out in the country. He builds her strong and declares that she must never be sold, so that his descendants many generations on can live in her. From her hilltop the Little House watches the sun come up and go down, the moon wax and wane, and the seasons turn: apple blossoms and daisies in spring, children swimming in the pond in summer, harvest and falling leaves in autumn, sledding and skating in winter. At night she sees the lights of a distant city and wonders what living there would be like. Gradually the city comes to her. A horseless carriage appears on the dirt road; surveyors and steam shovels cut a wide paved road in front of her; gas stations, roadside stands and small houses fill the fields. Then come bigger houses, apartment buildings and tenements, trolley cars, an elevated train overhead and a subway beneath, and at last tall buildings on either side. The Little House, empty, shabby and with broken windows, can no longer see the stars or tell the seasons apart, since everyone in the city hurries the same in every month. One spring day the great-great-granddaughter of the builder passes and recognizes her. Movers raise the house onto a truck and carry her out of the city to a small hill in the country, where she is set down among apple trees, mended and painted, lived in again, and able once more to watch the sun, moon and seasons. Burton's pictures keep the house at the same place on nearly every spread while the world changes around her, and lines of text curve along with the drawings. Houghton Mifflin published the book in 1942, and it won the Caldecott Medal in 1943. Walt Disney released an animated short based on it in 1952.
Top Lessons
Time passes in patterns
The Little House sees the same patterns again and again: sunrise and sunset, the moon's changes, spring, summer, fall and winter. Burton uses these to show young children how days make months and months make years, and how one house can stand through generations.
Change can come slowly
The city does not appear all at once. First one car, then a road, then houses, then trains and tall buildings. The book helps children notice how small changes add up until a place is completely different.
Caring for what our families made
The builder's promise is kept many generations later by a great-great-granddaughter who remembers the family stories. The book teaches that we can honor the people before us by caring for what they built and handed down.