Home Is Here

Home isn’t just a place — it’s what we carry with us.

Fans of Islandborn, Where Are You From?, and I Am Golden will be drawn to this tender exploration of belonging, cultural memory, and emotional resilience in this beautifully written picture book about a child leaving Guyana for Queens, New York, who discovers that home can be found again, without ever losing the first one.

In Home Is Here, a young girl knows exactly what home feels like. It is Sundays spent with family. It is sapodillas plucked fresh and sweet. It is the hum of the fish market with Grandma, quiet moments on the veranda with Grandpa, and the rhythms of soca, chutney, and reggae filling the air.

But when she leaves Guyana for a new life in Queens, New York, everything changes. The sounds are louder. The streets are unfamiliar. The ache of missing home settles deep in her chest, and for a while, nothing feels right.

Through gorgeously lyrical prose drawn from the author’s own childhood immigration experience, Gianna Lakenauth captures the loneliness, confusion, and quiet resilience of an immigrant child. Slowly, the girl begins to notice new beauty around her —new friendships, new traditions, and new ways to feel grounded — while still carrying her first home inside her heart.

Tender, honest, and profoundly hopeful, Home Is Here speaks directly to immigrant families while offering a universal message about identity, belonging, and the many places we can call home.