A Conversation with Matt de la Peña and Loren Long

A podcast interview with Matt de la Peña and Loren Long discussing Home on The Growing Readers Podcast, a production of The Children’s Book Review.

Join us for an intimate conversation with the powerhouse duo behind the picture books Love and Home — Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña and acclaimed illustrator Loren Long.

In this thoughtful discussion, they explore the concept of home as more than just physical spaces, sharing personal memories from their own childhoods and revealing the creative process behind their latest collaboration.

Discover how this meditation on home emerged during the pandemic, when both creators found themselves reflecting on our connections to place, people, and the natural world. Matt and Loren discuss their approach to creating emotionally resonant children’s literature that speaks to diverse experiences and offers children security in an ever-changing world.

Whether you’re a parent seeking meaningful books to share with your children, an educator looking for stories that spark important conversations, or simply a lover of beautiful picture books, this episode offers valuable insights into the art of storytelling and illustration that celebrates the universal pull of home.

Home is available in English, Spanish (as Hogar), and as an audiobook.

Listen to the Episode

Read the Transcript

Bianca Schulze: Hello Matt, welcome back to the Growing Readers podcast.

Matt De La Pena: Hello Bianca, thanks for having me.

Bianca Schulze: And hello, Loren Long.

Loren Long: Hello, Bianca. Good to see you.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, great to see both of you. Familiar characters on the show and also familiar to so many readers. So I’m beyond grateful to have both of you at the same time. What a treat for me. I do hope everybody goes back and listens to the episodes that feature both of you because we kind of have gone into your backstories like becoming writers and progression. So everybody go back and listen to that because today we’re going to start off with just some fun rapid fire questions. The book we’re talking about is the beautiful Home. So some of these rapid fire questions are home based. But let’s start with you, Matt. What’s the first memory that comes to mind when you hear the word home?

Matt De La Pena: I thought you were gonna say my first memory and I was just having this conversation with my two kids about my first memory and I was like I think it was at age 21 and they’re like what? So wait, my first memory when it comes to home—I was born in National City which is in San Diego and I was brought home to my grandmother’s house where we lived for five years so it’s like this big old family in this tiny little house.

Bianca Schulze: Love it. Loren, what about you? What comes to mind? What’s the first memory when you think or hear the word home?

Loren Long: I love this question because it contrasts with Matt’s life so much and it’s so cool that we have collaborated now on our second book from different worlds. Joplin, Missouri is what I think of. A little two bedroom house and my dad converted the garage into a little family room. And the other memory is somewhere along the way we had a basset hound that had a big litter of puppies. So we have photos of me like in diapers with these little puppies all around me. So that’s what like one of the first memories I have for home. And it was that little home that I was, you know, where I was born.

Bianca Schulze: Love it and you still have, you know, a dog by your side too. We have Charlie.

Loren Long: Yeah, Charlie. My wife and I have raised four dogs and two boys, you know, with similar success, I think.

Bianca Schulze: I love you.

Matt De La Pena: Bianca, I have to butt in. I have a dog too and I feel really bad about my dog right now because she had three teeth pulled yesterday. So she is in a haze of painkillers and so I just want to take a moment for my dog Ramona. It’s a Shih Tzu. It’s asleep 23 hours out of 24 every day. But now especially she’s down for the count.

Bianca Schulze: Oh my gosh. Well, then it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t come in and say that my dog Poppy wants a shout out and she’s having tummy troubles right now, but I won’t, I won’t. I’ll spare the details. All right.

Loren Long: Bianca, as you know, Charlie is my studio buddy and I know this is just an audio podcast, but he’s over there on the couch. We brought the couch back into the studio.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Does that mean that the yellow bus, you know, that your diorama is no longer there?

Loren Long: I have disassembled the yellow bus and the diorama for the yellow bus and it’s in parts down in my basement storage. Like I said, I keep waiting for the Smithsonian to call. My phone isn’t always charged so I’m sure I missed their call.

Matt De La Pena: Hahaha!

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. They’ll call Loren. They will call. All right. Well, let’s start with you on this one, Loren. Finish this sentence. A home isn’t complete without.

Loren Long: Family.

Bianca Schulze: Matt?

Matt De La Pena: Love.

Bianca Schulze: Well, that’s fitting. All right.

Loren Long: I like his answer better.

Bianca Schulze: I mean, I think that they both mean something similar, often, not always, but…

Matt De La Pena: Well, I think they fit together.

Loren Long: And it could, but also Bianca and Matt, could, certainly a home could be a home if you were there alone. So maybe a family would, yeah.

Matt De La Pena: That’s true. That’s true.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, well, it was a rapid fire question, Loren. You were put on the spot. Yeah.

Matt De La Pena: As you can see, we’re not great at the rapid fire because the reason why I said love is because honestly, the book Home was like birthed from the book, you know, or I mean, flip side. Yeah, from Love.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which we’re definitely going to talk about. So all right, between a cozy reading nook, a busy kitchen table, or a front porch swing, where would you feel most at home and why? Matt?

Matt De La Pena: Okay, I’ll go first. I think I have to say the two quiet places and I think I’m going to pick the front porch. Like that sounds so nice and calm. And even though I love the noise of my kids being around, sometimes my favorite is just this quiet little space where you get to read.

Bianca Schulze: Loren.

Loren Long: Yeah, as much as I would, the romantic side, would say that swing, however, we do have a screened back porch and it’s one of my favorite places to be ever, you know, and I’ve read manuscripts there and I’ve written there and I read Matt de la Pena’s manuscript for Love there and I remember sitting with a cup of coffee and I didn’t say anything and then I handed it over to Tracy my wife because I want her to—I love when she gets to read what I may illustrate. It’s up at the back porch.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, back porch. All right. And if your childhood had a signature sound that meant home, what would that sound be?

Matt De La Pena: So easy for me. I grew up next to the train tracks and to this day, anytime I hear a train whistle in the distance, to me it is like the sound of childhood.

Bianca Schulze: Loren. Yeah.

Loren Long: That’s cool. I have two sounds. This is from Kentucky in the 70s. This is after Missouri. One, a dog barking. We always had dogs. My mom usually had them relegated to the backyard, which is not my doggy parenting style. But the second is the bouncing of a basketball on the driveway.

Matt De La Pena: Ooh, ooh. You just drew me in.

Loren Long: We always had, yeah, we had neighborhood kids all around. I was never an accomplished basketball player, but we always played. There was somebody playing three on three or horse or pig, you know, basketball bouncing.

Bianca Schulze: Matt relates to that.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, let’s talk about the book that you’re here to talk about today. Yeah.

Matt De La Pena: Bianca, could I just say those rapid fire questions were amazing. I want all podcasts to be just those from now on.

Loren Long: I do look, Matt, maybe we could get Bianca to just do rapid fire for the next 40 minutes.

Matt De La Pena: Seriously, it just takes you to places you didn’t expect, you know?

Bianca Schulze: Well, I mean, you know, like, I feel like I’m gonna say, we have some longer answers now when we talk about the questions? Because I do, like, I feel like those are maybe the spontaneous thoughts, but the questions I’m gonna ask you now are things that I know probably crossed your mind or thoughts when you were creating the book. But your previous collaboration, Love, was a number one New York Times bestseller. So I need to know what drew you both back together for another meditation on such a fundamental human experience, Home. And I’m assuming that it started with you, Matt.

Matt De La Pena: Well, you know what, actually started with me and Loren when we were on tour for Love because I think we’ve been trying to get back to a second collaboration since then. We were brainstorming even on the road or on email after the Love tour, trying to figure out another word. And it’s so strange that it didn’t come for so long because we wanted to get the right, you know, the right meditation. And I remember I was, you know, living in San Diego now where I live. I was at a coffee shop where I always work and I opened a new file. I was ready to write a new picture book poem. And so I remember writing that first line about a parent reading and the traffic coming in through the curtains mumbling in. And I remember thinking, this feels different. I think this could be its own project. And so I started writing that poem and you know, it took me a while because it was hard for me to grasp what I was doing. looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t understand right away that this was like in concert with Love. But the minute I popped the title on Home, I thought Loren Long and then similar to Loren, I passed it to my wife, Caroline, and she said, at the end, said, Loren Long. And then I sent it to my agent and he said, Loren Long. And then to top it off, it ended up going to our editor. And the first thing she said to me is she said, Loren Long. And we’re like, okay, thank God there’s no controversy.

Bianca Schulze: I love it. Well, I think that every time I write something, I’m like, yeah, Loren Long. No, that’s awesome. And actually, listeners can’t see what I see, but Loren was grabbing the book Home and flipping pages. And I’m so curious what you were looking for just then, Loren.

Matt De La Pena: Absolutely.

Loren Long: I just like to put myself in Matt’s shoes as he was describing that, because it comes as a pretty final, as you know, manuscript by the time I see it. I was just like kind of, I just looked at those first, that first line to put myself, kind of imagine where Matt was when he did write that. Yeah, because it seems to me that Home is definitely related to, you know, the book Love. Yeah, Matt and I talked about it on our tour. And I would have thought if you’d have told me in 2018 in January or February when Love came out, I would have thought by now we’d have done maybe two other books, maybe three, because it was just such a great experience. But, you know, we had a pandemic. We both had our independent work schedules and contracts and things so but I’m happy now that we have come back to Home.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Well, I already shared this story with Loren, but I’m going to share it with Matt. Back when Love came out, you were on tour and you went to the American Library Association Winter Conference. And I was actually there doing a book signing as well. And you guys were there signing, but you were signing at a time before mine. So I lined up to go and get my copy of Love signed. But your line was like, I mean, it was wrapping around the place. It was so long and I had to go. I had to go to my table. So I couldn’t stay. And I don’t remember who it was, but somebody so lovely from Penguin said, don’t worry, Bianca, I’ll get your copy and I’ll get it signed. So I just want to show you my quick page here. I have my beloved signed copy of Love and I think Loren, you must have done that cute little umbrella there. But I, so I just like, you know, I had Jamie Lee Curtis on the show and I was like, I’m not gonna fangirl, I’m not gonna fangirl. And then I realized during that conversation, like I wasn’t my complete self because I wanted to fangirl. So I’m gonna have a fangirl moment and just say like, I mean, you two are the rock stars of children’s books. You know, I mean, your writing is incredible, Matt. You’ve won awards. You’ve had movies made. And Loren, your artwork, it’s award-winning. It’s best-selling. You’ve got your streaming series for Otis. I mean, just so cool. So I just wanted to share that moment that what you do is meaningful and you’re reaching readers’ hearts. You’re inspiring people like me to write their own stories.

I wish I could create art. I won’t stop doodling, but my art’s never gonna be seen in a book. But I just wanted to take a moment to fangirl and say, thanks for what you do.

Matt De La Pena: Well, thank you so much. And by the way, I can share your position there about looking over at another author or illustrator who has a massive line because one time I was in Nebraska. You know, I had just won the Newberry. I had a decent line, but I looked over at Loren’s and it was like 17 times longer than any of our lines. And I was like, whose line is that? And they were like, Loren Long. And I was like, so. Yeah, Loren, the best thing you can do is team up with the man.

Loren Long: It’s not always a long line, but that was fun.

Bianca Schulze: All right. Well, both the text and illustrations weave together comfort and sorrow. So Matt, in our last conversation, you said you think what you try to write is a feeling and not a message. So what goes into your approach balancing like flip-flopping emotions throughout like a narrative when you’re writing for young readers?

Matt De La Pena: Yeah, so I think the way I’ve started to understand it is that I’m most interested in just exploring something I don’t fully understand or I’m trying to wrap my head around. And I definitely never want to have a message because I just think when you write a message and you’re trying to teach something, it’s a different project. But when you’re just exploring something, and the way I think of it is I’m exploring it alongside the readers. And often I don’t really understand a book until it comes out and I hear what readers think. And then I go, wow, like I now see this different. So I love for that to allow for those possibilities. But I think with Home, you know, part of it, where Loren mentioned the pandemic earlier, here we all were stuck at home, quote unquote. And it was so interesting for me to not be on the road. You know, we all travel so much and here I was at home with my family, like so happy to be there in that space, but also watching the natural world reclaim parts of the neighborhood that had been, you know, dominated by humans. And so it was so interesting to watch that development. So I think that is where it came from. And then I just thought about how we humans were always trying to tame the natural world in order to, you know, impose our will or take from the natural world for energy, whatever it may be. And then then I thought, well, we were trying so hard to like think of ourselves as separate from the natural world. But I feel like the truth synthesis of becoming one with the natural world might be the ultimate thing that we should be trying to do. And that’s where the book came from. And of course, that’s so incredibly abstract. And then I had to try to find a way to make it more concrete.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, well it features some really diverse settings from houseboats to city streets. So what personal experiences or memories helped you influence you in like the different kinds of homes that you chose to include?

Matt De La Pena: Well, the greatest gift I’ve been given as a writer for kids is that I get to go visit different communities. I was just in South Carolina, in Greenville, South Carolina, and I can’t believe how many times, and this may happen to you too, Loren, but I can’t believe how many times I’m in a community that we don’t hear much about, you know? And I go, wow, I could live here. You know, this is, like it’s cool people. It’s affordable. There’s cool little stores, maybe a little coffee shop that I visit for a few days in a row. And I go, wow, I could actually live here. So it’s such a gift to see all these little pockets of community around the country. And I think sometimes the media focuses on the coasts or the big cities in between. And we forget about these incredible little jewels that are that are off the beaten path. And so that definitely is a factor for some of the settings. Also, Loren and I are starting with Love — we’re very conscious of bringing as many people into our stories, especially an idea story like Home and Love, because there’s not one main character. So you want to try to populate those stories with as many different kinds of people, young people as you can. So that’s also a big factor.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Loren, we’re going to go more into your artwork in a minute, but is there anything you wanted to add on to what Matt was saying?

Loren Long: Yeah, I mean, there’s so many examples we could go on and on, but Matt gave me and I’ll—I can—I won’t—I’ll just share briefly. Matt gave me an opportunity to illustrate images for Love and now again, for Home that I never would have dreamed I would be illustrating for a children’s picture book. And one of them is what he was saying in Love and Home was just representing not only inclusive, you know, ethnicities and race and the kinds of children that we are writing to, but also their lives, where they live, their geography, their geographical background, the type of house they live in. The trailer scene was like the third image of Love and we got letters about that and met people that said, that’s how I grew up. There were several examples of that in Love and I think there will be again for Home.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Well, I love that this story, like we’re talking a lot about home and people like sometimes confuse home for house, which in a way, like they are connected, but so much of this story emphasizes human connections. So from a quiet father’s guidance to a grandmother making tortillas. So what was the inspiration for these particular moments of connection? And I’m sure it’s kind of similar to what you just said, but we’ve got these beautiful written descriptions and images of what people’s homes look like, but then we’ve got what does home really mean and these beautiful connections that show it. So what inspired those?

Matt De La Pena: So, you know, I was thinking about this book when I was in South Carolina because, you know, obviously I wasn’t talking about Home because it’s not out yet and they have the kids that I was talking to hadn’t been exposed to it yet. But I was thinking, my gosh, I would love to ask these kids. When you think of the concept of home, what do you what do you think about? And I thought all of them are going to say a house or a trailer or an apartment, whatever, wherever they live. And then I thought, my dream, I don’t know if this will happen, but this is my hope. We read the book, we talk about the book. And then if I ask that same question again, I believe that some of the kids at least would start to think beyond the physical structure. And I think one of my favorite things Loren chose to do was have a cover of a book called Home that has no house. And, you know, you’re speaking to the relationship between people, right? The calloused hand of a father, a grandmother, like telling little May while she’s making tortillas. But the final turn, of course, is to the natural world. So there are these two other things to consider. There’s the physical structure, like a house or apartment. There are their relationships. And then the final one is our place in the universe. And I think those latter two are the most interesting to me.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Loren, I’m going to direct the next question to you. So Matt describes home through some really beautiful sensory details like tired lullaby and late night traffic. So what goes into developing these really intimate and specific moments? So translating those sensory experiences that Matt puts forward in his words and turning them into your masterful visual art.

Loren Long: Well, it’s, I mean, the nuts and bolts of it is I sit with the manuscript and read it over and over and let it sink in. And I liked what Matt said about tapping into a feeling. And as the illustrator, that’s what I’m trying to do as well. So I want, when somebody reads Home or any of my books for that matter, I want them to see, I want them to hear the words, but I want them to see the visuals. But I want them to feel the visuals. I want them to feel my art, you know? And if you can put the feeling of Matt’s words next to my visuals and get a feeling, an emotion, that’s the goal, I think. And so I thought Matt’s words for Home were equally powerful as Matt’s words for Love. I also thought they were very clever. For some reason I kept thinking to myself, is clever, as I was reading through what he had written about Home so yeah, for me, it’s just some of these, all right, if it’s an illustration assignment for the illustrators out there that might be listening, it’s not a, we talked a lot about this, and I, it’s not his work, at least the ones I’ve illustrated, it’s not like Last Stop, which is more of a narrative, right? Matt, there’s a main character and a secondary character and beginning a middle and an end they’re going somewhere whereas these are more poetic and lyrical and theme oriented picture books. Matt can speak to that more eloquently than I can but it’s a different illustration assignment. This assignment is not to get in the way of this poem, you know. My assignment is to fit into it as powerfully as I can. And if I can get feeling out of it, like an emotional hit out of a page turn, then I think I’ve done my job.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Well, Loren, the reviews are coming in, and the praises for your use of color and shading. So if there’s anything more to add on what you just said, can you talk to us about how you approached that emotional landscape of this book? So like, if you want to like sort of, I guess, get underneath the words, right? Like, like if you’re—was there anything like that you read and like, what do you do to get into the mindset to get underneath and like lift the words? I don’t know if that question is clear. It’s like, it’s one coming from my heart versus one that I wrote down. So.

Loren Long: You know, I think it’s just, sensitivity, you know, I mean, Matt is a sensitive writer and you might not have thought that this, this stuff would come from a guy who was a college basketball player. And, you know, but there’s just a great deal of empathy in Matt’s words and I hope that people feel that in my art. So I think it, the one little technique I do, and I kind of joke about it because I’m, still working very traditionally, as you know, Bianca, I don’t work with a computer. I’m going to dabble in, I’m dabbling a little bit in it and maybe someday I will, I will go there. But to this point, and I have nothing against it. People are doing amazing stuff on making books digitally and I just don’t do it yet. I love working with my hands. But one of my practices is doing a drawing. It’s a little thumbnail. It’s a little pencil drawing. And then I take the words, in this case Matt’s words, and I cut them out. I call it Loren shop. And I cut them out and I tape them with scotch tape next to my drawing. And I see what kind of feeling that invokes, you know, it’s, it just either feels really good and I can’t wait to make that painting or it’s like, okay, no, something’s not quite hitting there or I need a little more of the scene or I need less of it. And then it’s just drawing on your life experiences. You know, some of, some of, some of the images in Home and Love are me illustrating what Matt is saying. And then other moments are me bringing my own imagination and ideas to the text. His manuscripts give me a lot of room for that, and it’s fun as an illustrator. It’s a hard assignment because there isn’t just one character doing this, this, this, and this in a specific setting. These are all different settings, so you do have to try to take these big, powerful themes and condense them for our audience, which are children.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. But you know, I think when you illustrate from a place or even write from a place of more instinct, right, there isn’t necessarily a clear answer. Like it’s just you, it’s you putting yourself forth. So I think that was a beautiful answer.

Loren Long: Talking in circles a little bit, but hopefully that makes a little sense.

Loren Long: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. One quick example is the face in the Home. It echoes the face spread in Love. But I’m also working with a team. I have an art director and an editor. And they pushed back a little bit on the face. They didn’t think it was maybe the best solution for that moment. But to me, I was just like, no, in my gut, that’s just gonna be one of the powerful images of this book. I can’t wait to paint this. And it’s daring, like kind of, Matt, you can speak to this, but it’s that child looking out at that reader saying, this is a feeling and an emotion right now.

Bianca Schulze: Loren, let me ask you, you’re describing the image towards the end where Earth is reflected in the child’s eyes, right? Yeah.

Loren Long: Yeah, exactly. The text on that page is actually, maybe I’ll bring Matt in because he’s got it. It’s so fun. At least for Love and Home he’s memorized the book, committed it to memory. So do you, I don’t want to put you on the spot, Matt. What are the words on that?

Matt De La Pena: Yeah, no problem. The text on that image is it’s the thump, thump, thump of the earth sentimental song inviting you into the harmony of things.

Loren Long: So as you’re an illustrator and you’re reading those black and white words on the manuscript and you’re thinking there’s nothing in that that says—it doesn’t say it’s a big face, you know? But it’s like, I know that paired with those words could be really powerful. And I know that’s like the second to the last image in the whole book.

Matt De La Pena: Yeah

Loren Long: And so I’m like, let’s zoom in. Here it is right here. I know this is, but it’s one of my favorite pictures from the book. Every time you illustrate a book Bianca, you have a few favorites and Home is no exception.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, well, that was going to be my next question was like, what, like, is there a favorite moment? And it sounds as though that moment is a favorite. But why don’t we ask Matt, like, what’s your highlight? Like, you know, let’s focus on the artwork right now. Like, what’s your favorite illustration?

Matt De La Pena: Yeah. Well, one of my favorite things to see is, you know, the art when it comes in. It’s similar to when Loren gets a manuscript and he sits on the back porch and reads it a few times to decide, like, can I see this with my art? Well, I get the flip side where I get to see the finished art for the first time. And I think I might be different from some writers because I don’t think about the visual story at all when I’m writing the poem. I just think of it as a poem. The face is… please.

Bianca Schulze: Hey Matt, sorry to interrupt you. I feel like, did your mic move maybe? Your-

Matt De La Pena: Maybe. Let’s see.

Bianca Schulze: I just, your sound just went down just a little.

Matt De La Pena: Is it better now? Can you hear me okay?

Bianca Schulze: I can hear you and I can adjust it like when I’m doing the editing, but I just thought maybe I would catch that.

Matt De La Pena: Okay. Cool. I wonder what happened. I don’t know. That’s okay.

Bianca Schulze: It’s fine. Sorry. Hopefully, but maybe stop that response again.

Matt De La Pena: Yeah, yeah. So what I love is like, Loren will, you know, read a manuscript out on his back porch and he’ll decide after reading it a few times, can I see my art sitting next to these words? Well, I get the flip side of that. The book is done in terms of text, and then I get to see the finished art and there’s nothing that’s more exciting than seeing that for the first time because I’m actually not somebody who when I’m writing, I’m thinking of the visual story. I just write a poem and I try to make the language as musical as possible and I try to locate the arc of the story. But when I see the art, I’m like always so excited. And I think from the very beginning, the face with the eyes, to me, it’s the ultimate version of second person in writing. Like it’s almost in a way its second person in an illustration is the face staring right at you, right at the reader, the audience, kind of like Loren said, daring you to look away. And here’s this young person who’s found connection with the natural world to the point that, you know, in that child’s eyes, you see the earth. So that was definitely a favorite. And actually, I also have to highlight the one before that, which is, you know, it’s another thump, thump, thump line, but it’s being in a, you know, a forest of redwoods, these big, magnificent trees that show you how small you are. And then simultaneously, the child is wading into this clear, perfectly still cold lake. I think those two things for me are an example of, wow, look how small we are in the world and how we have to be humble. So I think that those two together are to me, they’re the highlights.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. So then Loren, like flip side of that, were there specific words that Matt wrote that you were the most excited to put a piece of art to?

Loren Long: It’s funny too, definitely those two spreads, the thump, thump, thump, I love that in that moment, that feeling. So those were cool. But I have to go back, one of my favorite things when I read it, I was like, oh man, that’s gonna, I know what I’m gonna do there. That’s the fun thing Bianca about this work, we were so blessed to get to do. It’s like, I do feel like I’m a kid at times. And like I’m in seventh grade, I’m gonna draw that. That’s gonna be so fun, you know? But when I read these words, I’ll do it. Through the back window of an old truck, you watch the only home you’ve ever known grow smaller and smaller behind you. And so I thought, being, I don’t know, my sensibility or whatever, I just thought of the Grapes of Wrath, you know? That wasn’t a big leap, but it’s like, it’s going to be my Grapes of Wrath image, you know? And so I was really excited to do it. And I, I purposely designed that in a way a little bit like I designed the image in Love where the little child’s under the table, under the piano. And that is you have the mother on the far extreme left of the spread and the father on the far extreme right. And then you have the child in the middle. And even though there’s some turbulence there, there’s still love. And even though, and I mean, think I’m thinking about these things in my, you know, in my little brain as I’m trying to make this stuff, but same with this, the, image. It’s like they’ve lost their home and Matt’s text, the father’s on the far extreme right and the mother’s on the far extreme left and the child is in the middle. But yet, like there was still love in that one turbulent scene in Love. There’s still home in this scene in Home those are the things that were going on in my mind. It was a fun image. And the other one was like the hurricane rains and those are really hitting home and I like there was there’s flooding and raining down and you probably saw us or heard some evidence of it down in Greenville, South Carolina, but all through North Carolina there was flooding and that’s part of my life going down there here from Cincinnati and so those scenes really resonated with me and yeah so I think you can’t help but bring that, that your personal emotion into your work.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, why you just go ahead. Yeah, go.

Matt De La Pena: Yeah. And do you mind if I jump in? Because I’m so excited now about especially that image with the truck. So what I love is, you know, the depth. I just think of the arc of this idea of home. And right in that moment, that’s in the very center of the arc, where if you look at the image, the young person there is looking back at the home and feeling the loss of security, but they’re not yet ready to understand that the true idea of that child’s home is in the cab of that truck with her. And so like we as the reader can kind of get there maybe on a second or third or fifth reading and looking at the image, but Loren also did a really smart thing where if you look at the negative space, maybe that’s the wrong terminology, Loren, but it’s in the shape of a house, you know, the structure of how they’re, you know, kind of giving this little girl a place to perch, right? And they’re holding hands, they’re all touching. So it’s a, it’s actually a physical form of home within the cab of the truck. So that’s the very middle of the arc of this story, because eventually the young people in the vignettes, they do see other things as home, not just the physical structure. So that’s really a big profound moment for me with the illustrations too, just seeing her inability to see what’s in the cab with her.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I love that. I love, it’s so great to like, I mean, as a reader, we all come and we take away what we want, right? And so I love this moment to sort of dissect that and, you know, and what your intention was, what Loren’s intention was, and how when they come together, it just became, you know, something even bigger between the words and the pictures. I just, I’m Australian and I hadn’t been home, home for eight years and I just went back. And the, it’s funny, the picture that you pick, right, is that truck pulling away and the kid is watching the house kind of getting smaller and smaller. And I did that exact same thing when I hopped on the airplane to return to this home. And I just watched the land and the beaches and the ocean go away until the clouds covered over my window and I couldn’t see it anymore. But I think that’s such a poignant moment. And I think it rings true for anybody that’s leaving one home. But I was also returning to home. The rest of my family was here. And that goes back to your word, Loren family. I was sad to leave my Australian home, but I was returning to my family home.

Yeah, it’s really beautiful. So I think also what you just touched on too, Loren, was the flooding that happens in the Carolinas. And we’ve got the wildfires from LA. And we had wildfires here in Colorado. And we’re not here to talk about climate or anything political as well. Is climate change real? But I mean, we are seeing all of these devastating things that take down the house structure and the belongings. And so I feel like this sense of what home really is is needed more than ever. So Matt, let’s start with you on this one. How do you hope that this story might help children process the changing nature of home in today’s world?

Matt De La Pena: So I think two things come to mind. One of them is on topic, one of them is off, but I’ll start on topic. Yeah, I think I want young people, but you I really do think picture books are for everyone. And you you do have two audiences when you create a picture book and you have the child and then the person who’s reading to that child or leading them through a discussion in class. So I wanted to challenge everyone to kind of see beyond the physical structure of home. And I really wanted to land on the oneness of us all, kind of like a bit of a Buddhist idea, but just that we’re all together. And by the way, you used the word empathy earlier, and it’s just so much easier to have empathy for everyone around you if you understand that we’re all so interconnected. So there’s that. But then you made me also think. You know, earlier I said we try so hard to impose our will on the natural world and carve out space for our human life. And it reminds me of something I learned early on. My dad was a very quiet man, working class guy. Didn’t have the language to say a lot of the things he wanted to teach us. But I remember he always was into the ocean, you know, he loved the ocean and he surfed and we call him the Mexican hippie surfer. But, you know, a couple of times when I was young, sixth grade, I’d go out there with him and I just get crushed by these waves. They would just destroy me and I’d be fighting so hard against them. And at one point he just was like, you can never win and you have to submit to the ocean. It’s bigger than you. And then he taught me how to like, you know, work with the ocean and let it be the dominant force. And I just think that we have to do that as humans is just allow the Earth to be the dominant force. You see these fires. I mean, we can’t compete with this. We just have to, I think, live alongside Earth and not against Earth.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Loren, what about you? Like what do you? Yeah.

Loren Long: I love that metaphor, the ocean and the power. Bianca, please ask me the question again.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah. So how do you hope that this particular story might help children process the changing nature of home in today’s world?

Loren Long: Well, I do think that, yeah, there’s so much going on in the, I mean, just in the last year. I mean, we have the fires, we have the hurricane, and then every community, there’s some, it feels like so many communities there are disasters, but yeah, I think I would probably, maybe not, I’m not maybe breaking new ground here, but just that security, that security that I think a child reading this book with someone they, that cares for them can have and discussions. So we talk a lot about what makes a good picture book. It’s hard to answer that question because this is definitely a book that isn’t, you know, giggles and laughs, you know, but it’s a, it’s a quiet moment and I love the idea that maybe a teacher or a librarian or a parent could read a really funny book and then also pick up this book to have more of a contemplative discussion. You know, I could see somebody like essentially reading this and then talking about it and then relating it to their life and then giving them a hug, giving their child a hug.

Okay, let’s, maybe there’s three children or two or one. Let’s all just hug. This feels like home to me, you know, and you know that those are really warm, fuzzy feelings, but those are the things that’s so I love about our world, our children’s literature world. The act of reading a book to a child is, is, is rivaled by no other institution heart art form, you know, to two people or one person and a group of kids. I mean, can you imagine that still being a safe harbor? I mean, it is a safe harbor, but could you imagine that still competing against all the other technical forms of our modern society? It still is. There’s nothing like it. And what we’re doing there when we’re reading to somebody we love is when they’re little, especially in the perfect sense, maybe they’re your child or you’re related somehow or you love them some way. You’re not only giving that child all the advantages we know that is educational, but you’re giving them a feeling and a security that they can carry with them their entire life. I mean, there’s no doubt that there are 75 year old and 80 year olds out there that still remember not only a book they loved when they were little, but who read it to them. And that can really, that security can be a safe harbor throughout life.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah.

Matt De La Pena: You know what, since I’m pointing or painting my dad as like this voice of wisdom in my life, can I do one more thing with my dad? So in the book, there’s a moment, you know, a hawk circling the sky, measuring the wings, measuring the sky with its wings. You know, these hawks end up in all my books. And there’s a reason when my dad, again, quiet guy, he’d walk me and my sister to the park sometimes and occasionally we’d be on the sidewalk and he’d just stop us. And he wouldn’t say anything, but he had spotted a hawk in the sky and he’d just point. And what he was saying, even though he didn’t have the language to say it, he was saying, stop. Isn’t the world beautiful? We have to notice it. And honestly, I think Loren and I probably both agree with this. All you’re doing when you write a picture book, I think, is you’re saying to a reader, potential reader, stop, look at the world. Isn’t it beautiful? Or like Loren said, if it’s a funny book, isn’t it hilarious? Or isn’t it silly? You know, and it just so happens this book is just saying, God, isn’t it beautiful? You know?

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah. Well, Matt, one of my favorite reading moments where an author read out loud, I already shared this with you in one of our previous discussions, was when you read Love to everybody at a conference in a keynote. So I am hoping that today you can just take a quick second to read a portion of Home to us. Will you do that?

Matt De La Pena: Sure, which section would you like? I’ll let you choose.

Bianca Schulze: No, you have to pick. What’s coming? What’s your heart and mind telling you to read right now?

Matt De La Pena: I mean, I kind of want to turn to the natural world since I’ve talked about that so many times. Is that okay? Just sort of the end? Okay. So let me figure out a good spot. Okay. I’m going to start with the mother and child who went, you know, onto the branch. One evening, your mom veers off the paved road for a trail that cuts through the woods. Together you climb the gnarled branches of an old oak tree to breathe the cool air and watch the colorful sky. Now most days you come to the seashore. While your brother collects shells, you sink your feet deep into the sand and read your books and think your quiet thoughts and slowly, very slowly, you shed the hurry like old skin and turn instead to wonder.

Home is not the walls we build up around our orderly little lives, but the wild, wild world outside. It’s the hawks steadily circling overhead, measuring the sky with its wings. And it’s the roar of the tide retreating over rocks. It’s the floppy flight of a monarch butterfly and the sweet smell of sunlight shining down on a field of jasmine. It’s a wish made on the first star you see while you tow back and forth on a tire swing. Maybe I’ll stop there.

Bianca Schulze: I love it. I also just enjoyed watching Loren smiling at you reading it. Loren, again, I have to ask you what was going through your mind as Matt read that.

Matt De La Pena: Bye.

Loren Long: It’s kind of fun. It’s kind of a fun experience because, one of my favorite things about, I’ve said this before about touring with, with Matt for Love was number one, all the attention wasn’t on me. But I got to sit and draw a little bit while he was reading. And I really, yeah. And I, I, I just remember, I mean, so I got to hear him read Love 40 times or whatever, maybe more. There’s just such a, I love the way he reads his own work. But just then I was remembering images that I painted and thinking, yeah, I forgot about that one. Then, you know, and there are two favorite moments too for me, if you want me to share it with you. I love this one where Matt writes, most days you come to the seashore while your brother collects shells, you sink your feet deep into the sand and read your books and think your quiet thoughts. And slowly, very slowly, you shed the hurry like old skin and turn instead toward wonder. So my goal for this one, Bianca, wasn’t to create, like to bring some, you know, groundbreaking concept. You know, my goal here was to just to hit the emotion that could raise to the level of that mood in that moment and I was really proud of this painting because of its lighting and…

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. That was actually my personal favorite moment. Yeah. I think because I read Home right after I got back from Australia and I had just sat on the beach and I was like, I felt seen.

Loren Long: That’s so cool. Another one then you might also identify with this one was another beach scene where again not breaking any new creative ground or anything, but just trying to rise to the mood and that is Home is not the voice inside your head insisting I want I want I want which is great which is a great theme for for everyone all of us but the slow gather of an ocean swell and the quiet weeping of the buskers violin. So this image is all about light, you know, just trying to rise to that moment. which is, yeah, so like just as an artist, sometimes there’s just, I think I pulled off the lighting that I wanted and that one worked out, you know, and because there’s so many that don’t live up to what you think you can paint in your head.

Bianca Schulze: So beautiful.

Matt De La Pena: Yeah, I love that picture.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah. Well, I have to ask this question because I love to end this way every time. But Loren, I’ll start with you. If listeners were to take away just one thing from our conversation today, just one, what would it be?

Loren Long: The sense of security and home you can create by reading to your children. That is a sense of home to me, you know. And yeah, that would be mine.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I love it. Matt, what about you? One thing that listeners would take away from our conversation today. You can cheat. You can do two Matt. I’ll let you.

Matt De La Pena: Can I do two? Okay, I gotta do two because one, I love kind of like listening to Loren’s excitement and how he described himself as like feeling like a little kid sometimes, I get to do this. I feel like that is the true mark of somebody who is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, is that excitement. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the business, it’s like so exciting. And then the other thing is I like, found myself talking about my dad a couple of times and I just want to say like, I am so glad that somehow I chose to celebrate the wisdom of a working-class person. To me, that’s so incredibly important, and it’s part of where I’m coming from with all my stories. And I just think that it’s awesome that that came out somehow in the interview.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, well, I need to thank you both so much for sharing your beautiful insights about Home. It was so fun to see you each like nod along and smile at the different things you were each saying, you know, because I know that while it’s a collaborative process, you also both worked on the text and the illustrations separately. And so to be able to come together and enjoy it together, it was really fun to watch you both kind of smile and nod and I just think together you’ve created like not just a book, but a gentle reminder that home exists wherever we find love, connection and belonging. And in a world where the concept of home is constantly evolving, like as I said before, this message feels more important than ever. And so like Love before it, Home feels destined to become a classic that families will treasure for generations to come. So thank you both for coming on the show today.

Matt De La Pena: Thank you, Bianca.

Loren Long: Thank you Bianca so much, appreciate what you do.

Bianca Schulze: Thanks.

Show Notes

Home

Written by Matt de la Peña

Illustrated by Loren Long

Ages 4+ | 48 Pages

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers | ISBN-13: 9780593110898

Publisher’s Book Summary: From a Newbery Medal-winning author and a bestselling illustrator, the powerhouse duo behind the #1 New York Times bestseller Love, comes a deeply moving ode to the places we feel safe, loved, and true to ourselves—wherever they might be.

Home is a tired lullaby
and a late-night traffic that mumbles in
through a crack in your curtains.

Home is the faint trumpet of a distant barge
as your grandfather casts his line
from the edge of his houseboat.

So begins this stirring celebration of home in its many forms. For home is an idea more profound than the walls we build up around ourselves. It’s the family that shows its love through small gestures every day. It’s the community that sees one another through hard times. And it’s the wonder of the natural world, a refuge we share with every living thing on Earth.

With lyrical text and expressive artwork, Matt de la Peña and Loren Long’s meditation on the universal pull of home, whatever its form, is destined to become a new classic that will be cherished by readers of every age.

Don’t miss the Spanish-language edition of this book, Hogar.

Buy the Book

About the Author

Matt de la Peña is the Newbery Medal–winning author of Last Stop on Market Street. He is also the author of the award-winning picture books The Perfect Place, Patchwork, Milo Imagines the World, Carmela Full of Wishes, Love, and A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis, as well as a number of critically acclaimed young adult novels.

Visit him at mattdelapena.com.

About the Illustrator

Loren Long is the author and illustrator of the New York Times bestselling Otis series, which is now an animated television series. He’s also the illustrator of the New York Times bestsellers Change Sings by Amanda Gorman, Of Thee I Sing by Barack Obama, and Love by Matt de la Peña.

Visit him at LorenLong.com.