“Like all the best stories, this takes place in Idaho.” Deadpan humor sets the tone for this droll recounting of historical events that culminated in a four-mile, month-long house relocation. A silver mine discovered in the 1870s by John “Minnie” Moore, later purchased by Brit Henry Miller, became the site of a three-story luxury home built for Miller’s bride, Annie. After Henry’s death, Annie “was tricked by a crooked banker,” lost her money, and began to raise pigs for income until confronted by a city prohibition against livestock. Unwilling to leave her home or abandon her pigs, Annie and her son Douglas elected to move the house outside the city limits, a complicated process that involved shifting the structure onto huge logs and hitching it to a team of horses. After rolling the house six feet forward on the logs, workers would stop, move the logs at the back to the front, and begin again. Reportedly, Annie and Douglas lived in the house during the move, along with their cook. “The pigs, we assume, followed along behind.” Earth-toned, whimsical, Gorey-esque illustrations are a pitch-perfect accompaniment to the story. (Ages 4–8)

Author Dave Eggers and artist Júlia Sardà spin a quirky historical event into a whimsical and tall-ish true tale of American ingenuity.

Make way for history as only Dave Eggers could stage it. It all started when John “Minnie” Moore built a mine in Idaho and sold it to Englishman Henry Miller. Then Henry married a local lass named Annie and built her a mansion, hence the “Millers’ Minnie Moore Mine Mansion.” After Henry died and Annie was hoodwinked—losing all but the mansion—she and her son took to raising pigs in the yard, as some are wont to do. But the town wanted those pigs out. Who could have guessed that Annie and her crew would remove the whole mansion instead—rolling it away slowly on logs—while she and her son were still living in it? Narrated with metafictional flair, this delightfully illustrated picture book is proof positive that nonfiction can be as lively and artful as any storybook.