Book Review: Julia's House for Lost Creatures

Julia's House for Lost Creatures by Ben Hatke

When Julia and her walking house come to town, she likes everything about her new neighborhood except how quiet it is! So Julia puts a sign up: “Julia’s House for Lost Creatures.” Soon she’s hosting goblins, mermaids, fairies, and even a dragon. Quiet isn’t a problem anymore for Julia…but getting her housemates to behave themselves is!

Earlier this year I read the Zita the Spacegirl serie, written and illustrated by Ben Hatke. This series was aimed at the more older children but Ben Hatke also wrote it in a way that it could be used for story telling and was also very enjoyable to read for the adult audience (yes I have to admit it). When I finished Zita the Spacegirl I saw the announcement of Ben Hatke's latest book Julia's House for Lost Creatures, another stunningly beautifully illustrated childrens book, that will be released in September later this year.
  

Ben Hatke starts of the story in a very cool way. "Julia's house came to town and decided to stay there". This opening sentence already inspires so many cool things, does Julia live in a moving house? Yes she does, her house is built on the back of a turtle!

Despite the fact Julia has such a cool house, she does live there all by herself and soon when her house has settled she starts to feel lonely. She wonders just how to solve this problem, such a big house all for herself, then a new idea comes to her mind and she opens the doors for lost creatures. At first she only has one new friend by soon many more come knocking on her door and for a while Julia couldn't be happier. When you think of lost creatures think of goblins, trolls, dragons and mermaids!

With a crowded house and lots of creatures all having their own habits and hobby's things soon start to run rampant. Julia, the clever girl she is makes up a list of rules to get everything under control and get things to quiet down a bit. However with things finally under control every creature contributing equally and no fighting, some other things become more apparent but luckily for this Julia also has a clever plan! 

The story is fairly simple but one that a lots of kids will definitely like and will appeal to. Besides the story I do have to give full credits to the beautiful illustrations that Ben Hatke has drawn. I was impressed with the level that he showed in Zita the Spacegirl  but with Julia's House for Lost Creatures he has really outdone himself. Ben Hatke switched to watercolor illustrations and this makes the book even feel that more magical. Several of the illustrations are full page long like the one below. The combination of color, light and dark and highlighting and shading is just perfectly drawn and will help to make kids even more excited about the different lost creatures that Julia get in her house. Next to the full page illustrations there are also pages that are blank and only show to small illustrations of Julia, this alternating between different styles gave a very nice and structured layout of the book for kids who will read this book on their own.

It is always said a picture tells more than a thousand words and Ben Hatke makes this count again and again. His illustrations are very detailed and can't say this often enough just stunningly beautiful!

With Julia's House for Lost Creatures Ben Hatke has again created a outstanding children's book. From a storyline that has again a message hidden within, (or I am just searching though) that goes like: accept everyone how they are despite their nature everyone is equal, down to the beautiful illustrations it's all spot on. And do you still know what makes Julia's house so special? It's positioned on the back of a turtle so I think (and hope) that we will see more of Julia's adventures. Get this book for your kids, as soon as they finish it they will hang a sign outside of your door as well!