Speaking of Home: ANYTHING Deserves Celebration

 The prior post shared a picture book in which HOME travels with the family, in much the way a turtle carries its home on its back. If you missed it, I hope you will take a look, HERE. The bottom line in that heartfelt story is that HOME is where LOVE is. 

CHRONICLE BOOKS, 2025

ANYTHING is a story by Rebecca Stead (multiple award-winning author who captures the emotional landscape of children of many ages) and illustrated by Gracey Zhang, (also a multi-award-winning illustrator). It, too, explores what and where HOME is, and how to find it.

Change is never easy, and this is a story of change and longing. A family must move, but their beloved home does not come with them. Not even the blue footed-bathtub for Thursday night baths. What, then, will make this new place HOME?

Those who write picture book manuscripts and seek feedback from other writers and editors are sometimes (often) told that their story really begins several pages into the text. What that means is that the first lines and pages are backstory, setting the stage, but not revealing anything important about the problem or characters. Backstory matters, but if a story is well-told, the talents of storyteller and illustrator will combine to reveal this without having to state it in advance. 

This is Stead's first picture book, and I hope it will not be her last. A writer of longer text (novels for middle grades or teens or adults) must come to picture book writing as if to poetry. What is required is trust in the reader to fill in from images and experiences what is not delivered in words. Condensing the luxury of 40,000 words to under 400 words for the entire book is  daunting, to say the least. In this case, though, Stead demonstrates expertise and appreciation for the elegance and absence of words in the best of picture books. 

In brief, a young girl and her dad are in day one of a move to a new apartment. Dad is deeply aware of the stress of moving and of his child's struggle with change. The first line is:

"The cake was chocolate."

Yep. That's it.

But just look at what that does to the opening.

Interior opening spread: ANYTHING, Chronicle Books

The illustrations are mostly backline drawings, some sketchy and some darkened and overlaid to focus attention and give weight to the scene element or characters. Isolated items carry attention through color (cake, rainbow, imagined wishes). The ANYTHING of the title refers to Dad's effort to make a hard transition more welcoming. Blowing out the candle on the cake allows for wishes for ANYTHING. (Even three wishes for ANYTHING, no matter how hard those wishes might be!)

The ensuing pages reveal a child with an aching heart who keeps some wishes to herself, a dad who knows his child well and provides safe spaces to share the wishes and help build a new home together. This is a full-sized book with loads of white space and minimal art and text. All the better to focus readers on that art and those well-chosen words. 

I won't spoil the deeply loving relationship, challenges, and resolve of this new release, because words I'd use would never do justice to the minimalist-richness of a book that is bound to be in the running for awards and praise in this calendar year. Beyond that I see this as a classic for years to come, ideal for Father's Day, for moving day, for change and loss, for discussions of HOME and what matters most, and as mentor text for writers and illustrators everywhere. 

A delightful note is that the first person narrator is sketched at such an age and with medium length hair and generic clothing so that they could visually read as a boy or girl. The lack of color and detail in character images means that readers can assign their own skin tones and identifiers to the characters if they wish, although they tend toward Caucasian. 

May I challenge you to get this book and consider carefully what it means to write what matters, but ONLY what matters, and to draw WHAT MATTERS. Like poetry, picture books like this make it clear that words without pictures fail, pictures without words often fail (though there are certainly some unforgettably fabulous wordless picture books), and both require an attentive, invested reader. That human element, with the right words and the right images, simply SOARS!