I found this picture book at Goodwill, the resale shop. As I looked through it, the pictures by Tom Shefelman drew me in, and I decided to take a chance and spend the dollar to bring it home to my library. I’m glad I did.

Victoria House is the story of an old country house, vacant and overgrown with weeds. As the developer who bought the land that Victoria House sits is about to have the house demolished to make way for “a boulevard lined with Spanish-style buildings,” the architect, Sarah, asks if she can move Victoria House to the city. She gets the approval of her husband, Jess, and of her young son, Mason, and of Big Earl, the house mover, and the house is carefully moved to a lot in the city.

I have another book in my library called Pete’s House by Harriet Sobol, and it is quite popular. It tells the story of a boy who is watching a house get built. Victoria House would pair well with Pete’s House, since both are about the nuts and bolts of building or remodeling a house. It’s a subject that can fascinate certain children as they think about what goes on underneath the surface in building and remodeling houses we live in.

As I said, the illustrations in Victoria House are stunning. Some of the color paintings reminded Engineer Husband of architectural renderings, which can be a work of art in and of themselves. I can see why someone might want to go to the trouble of moving such a beautiful house from the country to a place in the city where it could be repaired, lived in, and loved.

Victoria House was published in 1988, and it’s out of print. However, if you or your children are interested in old houses or architecture or house-building or moving houses, this book would be worth pursuing.