Before I Lived Here

Journey backward in time through all the layers of history that led up to your neighborhood’s existence.

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.