Bolormaa Bassansuren, adapted by Helen Mixter,
My Little Round House
Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2009

Rating: G*

The colour and drama of a nomadic Mongolian community is powerfully portrayed in this picture book, written and illustrated by Boloramaa Basansuran. First published in Japan, My Little Round House has won many international awards.

The community’s wandering circle of life is viewed through the eyes of a baby, Jilu. Boloramaa is a native Mongolian, and her fine eye for detail allows her to share her people through the nomadic community’s year, also the first year of baby Jilu’s life. From their colourful clothes to portrayals of their ger, cooking, animal husbandry and their journey across the steppe, the author’s vivid illustration and rhythmic text suit the circular motif which is both the process of the year and the house which defines the baby’s world. Following the wanderings of this nomadic tribe from his birth in the spring, to the autumn quarters, the coming of winter and the birth of the lambs in the spring, the reader participates in Jilu’s growth, as the seasons change with his family’s travels.

My Little Round House uses flat gouache illustrations which are very colorful, and speak to the author/illustrator’s Asian heritage. She vividly captures the process of a nomadic year, but also the small thigs–smells, sounds, and images–which create a sensory world. A good book for a unit on family life and ways of being.

Thematic Links: Family Life; Mongolia

Anne Burke
Vol. 15, number 1
October 2009

*Rating System:
E - Excellent, enduring, everyone should see it!
G - Good, even great at times, generally useful!
A - Average, all right, has its applications.
P - Problematic, puzzling, poorly presented.