Come Into My House

Who doesn't like to visit other people's houses? In this book you have forty to choose from. Some, admittedly, are a bit dilapidated but children don't mind – they don't want to buy houses, after all. Just to look at them, and the more mysterious the better. Christoph Meckel opens every door. Here are ramshackle huts and leaning towers, houses without bricks, mouseholes and lofts for pigeons. There are even houses that have taken to the road. And rooms where fourteen wild men live. Forever? Let's hope not. For "It's a fact you have to face/Every wild man needs his space".

Christoph Meckel presents his houses in short stanzas of four lines. Each one tells a little story that leaves a lot of space for adding further thoughts and rhymes. The same can be said of his pencil drawings with their bizarre details: pictures that can be looked at for a long time, pictures each child can colour or shade in his or her personal way. This is a book to stir the imagination.