THE BLUE HOUSE I LOVED

Room by room, a young narrator nostalgically recalls Aunt and Uncle’s long-ago home, cramped, chaotic, yet so filled with love.

The address remains exact—“off Maryland Avenue, behind a bar on Payne Avenue, on the east side of St. Paul”—even if the titular blue house is long gone. Once upon a time, it was a duplex, “its first floor rented to Hmong refugees.” Sometimes the upstairs neighbors had to “thump, thump, thump” when “we children downstairs played too loudly, laughed too hard, or jumped too high.” The porch was the two boy cousins’ room, where their hair would freeze overnight during winter. All the kids ate on the mismatched sofas in the dark living room. The three older girl cousins danced to cassette tapes in their room. The favorite back porch was where Uncle was welcomed home after surgery. Although it was Aunt and Uncle’s home for just two years, “my memory of that house kept them close to me long after our lives in America had spread us far from each other.” Artist Shin’s architectural prowess enables spectacularly meticulous illustrations from multiple viewpoints that undeniably elevate Hmong American Yang’s poignant, longing prose. Intricate full-color details—hanging flyswatter, scattered sneakers, fading hopscotch grid, a child too small to reach the faucet—add resonating depth, underscoring a loving family in constant motion.

Cherished memories transform a sagging house into a vibrant home, long after the family’s move.