"Hey, Al" by Arthur Yorinks, Illustrated by Richard Egielski

When Janitor Al and his best friend/pet Eddie are offered a chance to escape a life of drudgery and dullness for a beautiful paradise, they jump at the offer.  This book is beautiful, really beautiful, and is smartly written.  I love the allusions to classic literature.
This book gets Jack excited, every time.
Miles makes sure to say, "Eddie's a good swimmer." He doesn't like suspense.
(Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1986)

"We Were Tired Of Living In A House" by Liesel Maok Skorpen, illustrated by Doris Burn

I ran away about once a week.  We had a little red Spirit Flyer, and I'd pack up my pillows and some clothes and whatever else I felt like I'd need- including my sister, Rosie, and I'd take off.  I always let my mom know that I was running away, of course.  This family of four children take off after a very naughty morning, and have an exciting day finding a new place to live.  The original book was published in 1969, and Doris Burn did the illustrations, and they are wonderful, although all black and white.  A newer version has been published and is not nearly as winningly drawn.

Miles loves it when the kids decide to live on a pond.  When that home becomes unlivable, they take along a frog who was, "a particular friend."  Miles spent a good five minutes trying to pronounce "particular" in the most wonderful and adorable way.  I sometimes read this story just to hear him stumble over it.
(Longmans Canada Limited, 1969)

"Roxaboxen" by Alice McLerran, Illustrated by Barbara Cooney

Roxaboxen isn't your typical children's book.  It's something more beautiful and real than that- a recorded history of a beloved childhood place.  Alice McLerran's mother played with a group of neighborhood children on a rocky hill in Yuma, Arizona, and the story she told her daughter about her adventures in this place they named Roxaboxen is this book.  I think most everyone had a place like this- a place that becomes something else, that dominates a young mind and heart and becomes real.   The landscape of this book is different than many books, and I love the Arizona flora and fauna.  We live close to a desert that resembles the Arizona landscape, complete with spiky ocotillo and yucca plants.

This book led the town of Yuma to create a park where the original Roxaboxen stood- adding only a few new benches, but keeping the grounds much as they were when Alice McLerran's mother played there...although I'm sure they cleaned up some of the glass.

Jack likes the lizard graveyard, having a love for all reptiles, dead or alive.  He also likes to hear about the jail.

(Scholastic Inc. 1991)

"Ox-Cart Man" by Donald Hall Illustrated by Barbara Cooney

Adding a Caldecott Award winner seems a little cheap- of course this book is excellent.  I've read it now as part of our homeschooling to Bowden and Lucy- now eight and six- and I read it regularly with Jack and Miles- 4 and 2, respectively.  I love that this book describes a pre-consumer lifestyle that used to be how everyone lived in the western world, but is now so far-removed from most of our experience that they seem like fairy tales.  Flax into linen?  Might as well be straw into gold!
Part of this book, too, appeals to the part of me that wants to be a farmer.  And a shepherdess.
Jack and Miles and I all give a little sigh when the Ox-Cart man sells his Ox.  Tender-hearted city folk that we are.
(Scholastic Inc. 1979)