Today, I’ve chosen Bless This House for Perfect Picture Book Fridays.

Bless This House
Written and Illustrated by Leslie Staub
Harcourt, Inc., 2000

Suitable: Ages 2 to 4

Theme/Topic: Prayer, Environment, Rhyme

Opening: Bless this house and bless this room.
Bless the big bright blue-white moon.

Brief Synopsis: Part of the editorial review on Amazon from the American Library Association says, “With simple chant and bright oil paintings, a bedtime ecological prayer connects a child in his room with all the animal life on the planet… .”


Link to Resources: I think an easy one to do day or night is to look out your child’s window and talk about the environment outside. Even in a planned subdivision, there are sometimes unexpected animals like coyotes and deer roaming the paved streets.

Baby Center has a Bless this House poem/prayer to say with your children.

The PBS Kids Lab has a Build Me a House activity.

The site eslflow.com has some environmental lesson plans. I found an endangered species vocabulary & speaking worksheet with pictures.


Why I chose this book: I found this book at a library book sale, because it had a torn page or two. With a little tape, I fixed it up.

The simple language is good for any age as the illustrations add so much to the story. The opening line reminds me of Goodnight Moon a bit. The story takes its reader outside of his own world at his house and takes him into a world filled with wonderful creatures “even the bugs.”

I hope you are able to find a copy at your library. I noticed Amazon had a few used copies including a “bargain price” for a new hardcover at $5,555.51. Used copies were much cheaper.

To find more picture books and resources, visit Susanna Leonard Hill’sblog and look for the Perfect Picture Books page.