Before I Lived Here

The building you live in has probably been around longer than you, so you may think it's been there forever. But no matter where you live, a whole lot happened before your home was built.

In Before I Lived Here, a boy peels away each layer of the history of the land his house sits on. Follow along from the construction of the neighborhood back to the planning of it; from the ranchers and log cabins that predated it, back to the region's Indigenous people and their eviction from the land . . . all the way back to the time of the dinosaurs.

Before I Lived Here reminds us that history isn't something that happens far away, to other people--it's in our own backyards. Debut author Stacy S. Jensen makes the learning readily digestible. There's something here for every reader--from the irresistible depiction of construction sites for vehicle fans, to the somber facts of indigenous displacement recounted without flinching, making for a great family conversation starter on many different levels.