From the Caldecott Honor–winning creator of Home

and Du Iz Tak? comes a gorgeous and quirky tale of a

wholly extraordinary room where everything is a half.

In the Half Room

The half room is full of half things. A half chair, a half cat,
even half shoes—all just as nice as whole things. When half
a knock comes on half a door, who in the world could it be?
With inventive flair, Caldecott Honoree Carson Ellis explores
halves and wholes in an ingenious and thought-provoking
picture book. Ink and gouache illustrations featuring wry detail
and velvety textures conjure a dreamlike mood while leaving
space for imagining. A celebration of the surreal and the
serendipitous and the beauty of the two together, this brilliant
picture book will have readers seeing halves with whole
new eyes.

CARSON ELLIS is the author-illustrator of the best-selling

picture books Home and Du Iz Tak?, a Caldecott Honor
Book and E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winner. She has
illustrated a number of books, including The Shortest Day by
ON SALE OCTOBER 13, 2020
Susan Cooper. Carson Ellis lives in
HC: 978-1-5362-1456-7
Portland, Oregon, with her family.
$16.99 ($22.99 CAN) • Ages 4–8 • 32 pages

Marketing Plan
• National online consumer advertising
• Trade, school, and library advertising
• National publicity campaign
• Blogger outreach
• Select author appearances
• Promotional stickers
• Activity kit
• Teacher Tip Card
• Featured title at librarian preview
• Featured title in Candlewick CIRC e-newsletter

ILLUSTRATION © 2020 BY CARSON ELLIS

 More from
CARSON ELLIS

★ “It’s a work that confers classic gifts: time to look and time to wonder.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Ellis’s] sly humor and irreverent spirit only endear her to kids and grown-ups
alike.” —The New York Times Book Review

HC: 978-0-7636-6529-6 • $17.99 ($23.99 CAN) • Ages 4–8 • 40 pages

Also available in Spanish: Hogar

HC: 978-1-5362-1067-5 • $17.99 ($23.99 CAN)
PB: 978-1-5362-1068-2 • $7.99 ($10.99 CAN)

A CALDECOTT HONOR BOOK

“Carson Ellis has created a fantastic microcosm with her usual grace and
inventiveness.” —The New York Times Book Review

★ “Ellis’s bewitching creation stars a lively company of insects who speak a

language unrelated to English, and working out what they are saying is one of
the story’s delights. . . . Very gently, Ellis suggests that humans have no idea what
wonders are unfolding at their feet—and that what takes place in the lives of
insects is not so different from their own. Has there ever been anything quite like
it? Ma nazoot.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

HC: 978-0-7636-6530-2 • $16.99 ($21.99 CAN) • Ages 4–8 • 48 pages

★ “Ellis’s beautiful gouache paintings depict a world that is pushing against the dark
with candles and dance and song.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

★ “Newbery Medalist Cooper and Caldecott Honoree Ellis observe winter solstice,
which Northern Europeans once celebrated, by ‘singing, dancing,/ To drive the
dark away’ as one year ended and another began. In Ellis’s subtle, mythical
paintings, the sun—a large gray figure with a radiant head—slips away over
a landscape first bright and brown, then deep with snow. Lacy tree branches
darken, and candles appear on windowsills: ‘So the shortest day came,/ and the
year died.’” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

HC: 978-0-7636-8698-7 • $17.99 ($23.99 CAN) • Ages 4–8 • 32 pages