Before I Lived Here

A child speaker excavates their home’s past in a place-based picture book that travels through time. From an open second-story window in a busy suburban neighborhood, a child shown with pale skin and dark hair reaches toward the mountains before the time frame shifts to two years back, when “the landscape looked different.” The phrasing repeats iteratively as text and image continue to move through a timeline of other “before”s—from the neighborhood’s development three years ago, to city planning 30 years back, to early-20th-century cattle ranches, the homesteads (“built on stolen land”) that they replaced, and the land upon which “the first people—the Utes—set up tipis.” Sparingly descriptive prose from debut author Jensen further winds back, envisioning dinosaurs, ammonite-populated oceans, and the emergence of the mountain range featured at the start. Displaying both digital and analog techniques, energetic, retro-style artwork from Ngai (Wishes) employs glowing colors, crisp lines, and a mixture of textile-like patterns. Culminating scenes embrace a scratch art technique for a powerfully layered visual of the way the past remains etched on the present. An author’s note and resources conclude. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Ana Crespo, East West Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Gail Gaynin, Morgan Gaynin. (Aug.)