*Shortlisted

Review by Ivy, Westgate Primary School, Morecambe
I loved the character of Annie because she is really nice to her son and her husband. She was an amazing character and I loved how, when she was forced to move but didn’t want to leave her house – she decided to take it with her! The house, and the story, was in the 1870s, in Idaho USA. I learnt the town was full of people making money by discovering silver. It sounded like a really good place to visit – you can still visit the house today. Henry Miller’s story is really interesting. He built his wife a mansion while she was away in Europe! I thought it was amazing that Annie was able to get her mansion moved using just logs and lots of people! It was really exciting to see what they did. The book was quite light-hearted too - it keeps saying “this actually happened” because it is such a hard / crazy thing that they did. The thing that most stands out or me is that they could move a house. I learned a lot about the time in which the story is set – that the made money by mining for silver and that they believed they could do anything, which meant that they could sometimes move houses. I'd recommend this book to people my age and older because it’s really good and it helps you learn about Idaho and mining for silver.

Review by Hafsah, Dixons Allerton Academy Bradford
I found it interesting because I have always liked books set in olden times. I liked the dog because they found so much silver but I didn’t dislike any character. The illustrations drew me to the book and I would recommend it to others. There was nothing I disliked.

Review by Aoife, St. Peter’s CE Primary School, Heysham
I really enjoyed the book, it had wonderful illustrations which helped me to understand the story. Even though it was different to the books I usually read, I enjoyed it because it was set in Idaho in America a long time ago, in the 1870’s. It was good to read something different and that I wouldn’t usually choose.

I found it interesting that the Miller’s were able to move their home to a new place by placing logs underneath the house and attaching the house to horses which pulled the house as the logs rolled underneath. This was so clever. This is a technique that we no longer use because we have lots of different machines to help us build houses and move things around. I also find it really interesting that the Miller’s house is still standing today.

I liked the character of Douglas, the Miller’s son, he was funny and would ride horses across the river and play with the pigs.

I would recommend this book to my friends because I think they would find it just as interesting as I did.