A New Home for Allie, by author Carrie Daws, is a delightful picture book for children encountering a big life change. Written with military families in mind, this is a perfect book for little ones facing a big move from one base to another.

Allie, a young female giraffe, lives in Aberdare National Park in Kenya, where her father is a Captain in the Animal Jungle Patrol. The Patrol watches over the Park and it is all Allie has ever known. She has friends there that include a colorful oxpecker bird named Oscar, and a young giraffe friend named Jamie. The Park is filled with beautiful jungle landscape and a gorgeous waterfall. It is lush and wonderful--as is the full-color artwork in the book done by Joanie Bruce. It is a feast for the eyes!

Allie's father receives orders and they must move to a new home in Somalia. She is nervous about leaving and asks her father many questions about the new location. I can imagine that a child facing such a move would ask similar questions and wonder if there will be new friends in the new home. The book does this well. If I was facing such a move and had young children, this would be a perfect resource to use to help them look forward to the move rather than dread it. The book also includes a geography page with the two countries outlined. It could certainly be the starting point for a geography study of the area.

A New Home for Allie is a lovely book and will make a very nice addition to the library of any family, but particularly well-suited to those in military families.

-Product review by Kate Kessler, Product Reviews Director, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, January, 2018