Homecoming
Cynthia Voigt (1981)
“Four children are abandoned in a parking lot by their mother and walk two hundred miles down the Connecticut coast to find a home — and discover that home is not a place but a choice.”
Why This Book Matters
Homecoming and its sequel Dicey's Song are among the most celebrated children's novels of the twentieth century. The Tillerman cycle — seven novels — defined a new standard for psychological complexity in children's literature. Homecoming was a Newbery Honor Book (1982), and Dicey's Song won the Newbery Medal (1983). The novels demonstrated that children's fiction could address abandonment, mental illness, poverty, and institutional failure without condescension or false resolution.
Firsts & Innovations
One of the first children's novels to address parental mental illness and child abandonment with unflinching honesty
Pioneered the extended family saga in children's literature — seven novels following one family across multiple perspectives
Demonstrated that children's fiction could sustain the psychological complexity and narrative ambiguity of adult literary fiction
Cultural Impact
The Tillerman cycle became a staple of middle school and high school English curricula across the United States
Dicey Tillerman became an iconic figure in children's literature — a model of female competence and resilience
Influenced a generation of children's authors (Katherine Paterson, Jerry Spinelli, Sharon Creech) toward greater emotional honesty
The novel's treatment of mental illness and abandonment opened space for similar subjects in children's literature
Frequently cited by adults who read it as children as a formative reading experience
Banned & Challenged
Occasionally challenged in schools for its depictions of child abandonment, poverty, and its frank treatment of the failures of social institutions. Defenders note that the novel depicts these realities without sensationalism and with genuine empathy.