Oh Give Me A Home

by Jane Kurtz

Overview

From Author Jane Kurtz, winner of the School Library Journal Best Of The Year and numerous other awards. 

In verse, Oh Give Me a Home relates the story of a girl’s inside-out view of America as she journeys from Ethiopia, searches for friends and belonging.

Kirkus Starred Review 

Booklist Starred Review

Selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Book. 

In elementary school, Jane knows that Maji, Ethiopia, cool and green, perched on a mountainside of waterfalls and monkeys, is the perfect place to live. Or it would be perfect if she had a pet or a best friend.

Jane is full of ideas that include schemes for an animal to play with. A real pet, not the dik dik that dies, the monkey that tries to bite her fingers, nor the elusive cat that lives in the shed and has just absconded with her litter of kittens. But her plans are derailed as Jane learns she is to move back to America with her family.

America and Africa collide as Jane tries to answer the simple question, “Where am I from?” Entering grade school in suburban America for the first time, will she find a best friend a continent away from her real life in Africa? Or is America–where she meets her relatives for laughter and frolicking and big holiday meals–her real home? 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781960803207
Publisher:	Catalyst Press
Publication date:	07/08/2025
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jane Kurtz is an award-winning author of more than forty children’s books. She lived in Ethiopia from the age of two where family members worked for nearly thirty years. Currently, Jane is an adviser to Ethiopia Reads and is the creative director of the Open Hearts Big Dreams book program and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Read an Excerpt

Sister pile

It’s a famous Maji fog.

My green, green world—

green grass, green trees,

green forests around our mountain—

goes softly white.

Time for a sister pile!

Joy and Cathy pretend to be puppies.

Janny totters and squeals on the side.

“Come,” Joy tells her.

“You can be Janie’s puppy dog.”

“Pee-yew, no,” I say.

“No poopy puppy diapers for me.”

Everyone giggles

except Carolyn.

Carolyn acts aloof—

a word she taught me,

a word she’s showing off

to prove she’s grown-up.

Joy tips her head to be cute.

Cathy bounces and nips.

“Ouch!” Joy says. “Get away!”

“Girls,” Mom says. “Not so wild, please.”

She rests her hands on her belly.

Daddy looks up from whatever he’s fixing.

“Be good,” he says. “I’ll sing with you soon.”

The sister pile turns to squeals,

with even Carolyn deciding to play.

On foggy days,

this house is

a house full of sisters,

the whole and only world.

Editorial Reviews

"This vibrant and lyrically written memoir in verse covers the award-winning author Kurtz’s life as a child growing up in Ethiopia with her missionary parents and four siblings… …Her heartwarming, relatable, and humorous memoir beautifully illustrates that no matter where you grow up, if you have a loving and supportive family, you can make a home anywhere." — Sharon Rawlins, Booklist, starred review

”Free verse perfectly captures Janie’s thought processes—wistful, scattered, at once self-centered and keenly attuned to others’ emotions. This youthful perspective makes Kurtz’s recollections from years ago feel fresh and immediate. A buoyant, beautiful explication of cultural adjustment as seen through a child’s eyes." — Kirkus, starred review

"Jane Kurtz’s touching memoir in verse Oh Give Me a Home is about belonging and sisterhood. [...] Her examinations of the world through small creatures are [...] examples of the purity of her perspective, as when she refers to a toy dinosaur as a “prehistoric pet.” Intelligible and swift, it's a steady, introspective text that showcases profound personal changes and family love. Oh Give Me a Home is a tender and accessible memoir centered in growing up in a changing world." — Foreword Reviews

From the Publisher

★ 2025-05-30
In this eloquent verse memoir, a young girl’s understanding of home evolves.

Kurtz offers readers a deeply personal vision of her unique childhood. Thanks to her World War II veteran father, a Protestant minister, she was raised in Maji, a small village in the mountains of Ethiopia, where she was home-schooled by her mother. A white girl born in America, young Janie had a happy and full life in Ethiopia. She played with her four sisters, concocted schemes to procure a pet, and reveled in sensory experiences specific to her rural East African childhood—a misty waterfall, aromatic spices, sour breads, and encounters with wild animals. At the same time, she remained conscious of her parents’ concerns, especially her mother’s anxiousness as her belly grew with a new pregnancy. Jane, in turn, began to worry that change was imminent—and it was soon confirmed that the family would return to America for a year. The memoir’s latter half chronicles their long journey to their temporary home in Idaho, where Jane entered third grade and experienced a deep sense of displacement: “In Boise, / I look like I belong. / I sound like I belong. / But I’m different, too. / Different on the inside.” Free verse perfectly captures Janie’s thought processes—wistful, scattered, at once self-centered and keenly attuned to others’ emotions. This youthful perspective makes Kurtz’s recollections from years ago feel fresh and immediate.

A buoyant, beautiful explication of cultural adjustment as seen through a child’s eyes.(Verse memoir. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews