Matt de la Peña is the author of Last Stop on Market Street, for which he won the Newbery Medal, and several other picture books and YA novels. Loren Long is the author and illustrator of the Otis picture book series, which is now an animated TV show, and most recently, The Yellow Bus. We asked de la Peña and Long, who previously paired up for the picture book Love, to speak with each other about their new collaboration, Home, and the many shapes that shelter can take.

Matt de la Peña: Loren! It’s so great to be working with you again. It feels like 27 years since our first collaboration.

Loren Long: Matt! When we published Love together in 2018, it felt like we’d collaborate again right away.

De la Peña: Then the pandemic hit!

Long: Yes, the pandemic changed publishing schedules and I was attempting to write some of my own projects during that time.

De la Peña: The pandemic is actually a great way to start talking about our new collaboration, Home.

Long: Matt, where did this idea come from?

De la Peña: My family and I moved from Brooklyn to San Diego right before everything closed down. And all of a sudden, I was grounded. No travel. No trips across the country to visit schools. I gotta say, it was jarring. But I loved hanging out with my kids and my wife—watching my daughter learn to read. I also began to notice how the physical world was changing around us. Nature was reclaiming spaces that humans had been dominating. The streets were empty. My three-year-old son would duck behind my legs whenever he saw another person. And all of us were spending so much more time at home—those of us who were lucky enough to have a physical home. That’s when the idea of this book started to take shape. What if a home could be lost? And does the concept of “home” transcend physical walls? These questions felt a lot like the questions I was asking myself when I wrote Love. Anyway, a few months later I had a rough manuscript. And I was thrilled you wanted to join me on this journey.

Long: I love the origins of everything you write. I can discuss the opportunities that collaborating with you continues to give me as a picture maker. But first, I’d like to mention the profound timing of this book: a picture book for kids that explores the word “home.”

It really hit me in a direct way watching Hurricane Helene’s rains, winds, and floods take away so many homes and disrupt so many lives in the state of North Carolina last year. My family has spent a great deal of time in the western North Carolina mountains over the years. And the devastation of the L.A. wildfires is impacting so many people and exposing the vulnerability of what a home is. It will take years for so many people to rebuild their lives and their very sense of home. I know you join me in sending them all love and warmth.

De la Peña: I know you have a personal connection to the devastation we saw in North Carolina. And many of my friends lost everything in the L.A. wildfires. You’re exactly right. We want to send them love and strength—especially all the young folks who are trying to wrap their heads around that kind of loss.

Long: Perhaps my favorite thing about your work is that your material shoots straight with a real-world honesty and sensitivity, which allows our youngest readers an opportunity to feel safe and included. And most importantly, your writing creates the opportunity for empathy for all of our readers.

De la Peña: I appreciate that. Extending from there, I’d like to share one final turn in the book, which is a sort of invitation for readers. About three quarters of the way through, a mom veers off the paved road for a trail that cuts through the woods. She and her son essentially turn away from all of our impressive human industry to breathe the cool air and watch the colorful sky. From this point on, the book is interested in a much bigger idea of home: the Earth—but not only that, the oneness of it all. Is it possible that we’re all connected not only to each other but the world itself? Anyway, that oneness fascinates me.

I’d like to turn to the art now. Can you tell us about one discovery you made while making the pictures for this book? Did anything unexpected happen in one of the vignettes?

Long: Matt, your manuscripts have prompted me to create images I never thought I’d do in a picture book. In Love, I painted a child under a piano and a family gathered around a TV. And now in Home, I’ve painted a family in the wreckage of a hurricane flood and a little girl watching the only home she has ever known disappear through the back window of her father’s truck. These are dramatic images, yet they all possess a sense of “love” and “home” for our readers to feel. The most surprising thing I stumbled into while making the art for Home might be its cover. My original thought was that a book called Home should feature some sort of house or home structure on the cover. Makes sense, right? But as I absorbed the themes in your text, it became clear to me that a child on a swing, out in the natural world, says it all.

De la Peña: I love the cover so much. Loren, it’s been so great talking. Thanks, man! And thanks to PW for giving us this chance to introduce our new book!

Long: Back atcha, Matt! Making art for children is a gift that I never take for granted.

I’m forever grateful for our collaborations and the friendship that we’ve developed because of them.

Home by Matt de la Peña, illus. by Loren Long. Putnam, $19.99 Mar. 11 ISBN 978-0-593-11089-8