More important than ever to combat intolerance and encourage interest in readers’ young peers, this highly visual overview...
A new edition of a 1995 favorite, this volume will draw in today’s children with the immediacy of its photos of 44 international children.
Six sections feature, in turn, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Southeast Asia and Australasia. Each begins with a generalized two-page spread of information including a “fact file,” a large map, headshots of each region’s children, a famous place (the usual suspects, such as the Grand Canyon and the pyramids), one animal, and a food item. Profiled children are presented in large active photos (set on white backgrounds in familiar DK style) with smaller images of family and home, favorite activities, typical foods, toys, and, often, pets. Each child’s signature (in appropriate writing systems), the word(s) for “hello” (with pronunciation), small maps (difficult to make out), and facts about their localities are also included. Text is limited to short paragraphs and photo captions. It is the engaging photos that pop, showing children in both contemporary, Western-style dress and traditional clothes still worn for special occasions. There are nuclear, extended, single-parent, and divorced families; Alonso from Mexico has a sister who has a wife; Morgan from France is the son of a mixed-race couple (living separately); Andre, of Australian Aboriginal descent, lives with his grandparents; New Zealander Jamie has a Maori mother and white father.
More important than ever to combat intolerance and encourage interest in readers’ young peers, this highly visual overview is well worth the update. (Nonfiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4654-5392-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Appreciation for Thailand’s heritage will quickly follow the reading of this book.
Detailed cultural information about a country that most people in the U.S. may only know about through its food.
Thailand is a country rich in tradition, folklore, visual arts, music, and dance as well as culinary treats, and this volume provides access to a wealth of background material, stories, and hands-on projects and activities. One of a series of books on Asian cultures, this includes recipes for such dishes as sticky rice with mangoes and Thai chicken noodle soup (made with rice noodles), which follow a description of the importance of rice in the Thai diet. A description of Loi Krathong, the floating-lantern festival, is presented after a double-page spread on religion. Sheet music for a song and the instructions for making a special floating lantern are included, along with information on the flying-lantern festival, Yi-Peng, celebrated in northern Thailand at the same time, during the full moon of November. A spectacular photo displays the golden flying lanterns sent up to carry wishes to the Buddha. Other photos are used occasionally throughout the book, but most of the illustrations have an attractive, brightly colored, cartoonish look. Although other resources will be needed to give a picture of Thai history and the current social, political, and economic situations, this compendium will serve children, educators (formal and informal), librarians, and parents well.
Appreciation for Thailand’s heritage will quickly follow the reading of this book. (bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8048-4427-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Tuttle
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Lively, lucid, and timely.
Updated for a modern audience, the pre-eminent first lady’s views on what government is and does and why having a voice in it all matters.
The female and nonwhite firefighters, garbage collectors, public officials, and jurors in Lin’s bright, racially and gender-diverse illustrations—not to mention references in the narrative to calling 911, to “alderpersons,” and “selectpeople”—were likely not in the original 1932 edition. It’s easy, though, to hear Roosevelt, or at least her voice, in the pellucid descriptions of how local, state, and national governments are organized and the kinds of services they are charged with providing, both in the common-sense tone (“What seems good to you might not be good for the rest of the nation”) and in the inspirational message: “Marking your ballot is one of the most important—and exciting—things you’ll ever do.” Also at least partly new are descriptive notes about each amendment to the Constitution and each position in contemporary presidents’ cabinets, plus an eye-opening explanation of how electoral results can be manipulated through gerrymandering (using “blue” and “purple” voters as examples). Further comments by Roosevelt on citizenship and a brief biography focusing on her causes and character lead in to a short but choice set of more detailed sources of information about her life and work.
Lively, lucid, and timely. (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62672-879-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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