Tag geography

Africa: Amazing Africa

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Africa: Amazing Africa
Atinuke, illustrated by Mouni Feddag
Walker Books

Nigerian-born storyteller Atinuke takes us on an exciting journey through the countries of Africa in her celebration of this incredible continent – its history, culture, religions, traditions and languages.

She divides the 55 or so countries into regions – Southern Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa and North Africa providing quintessential details of each country: the wild life for which Kenya is famous;

the irresistible drumming rhythms of Burundi – (who can fail to respond to the sound of those awesome Royal Drummers of Burundi, certainly not me),

the diamond industry and contrasting cattle-herding of Botswana for instance.

There are also maps, pages featuring hairstyles, football and religions.

Mounti Feddag’s vibrant illustrations are superb, exploding into colour and pattern on every page.

I’m fortunate in having many friends from different parts of this huge continent but have never visited it other than for a childhood holiday to the island of Mauritius, and occasionally in transit; brimming with gorgeousness, this book has made me want to change that.

Those with a thirst for finding out about life in different parts of the world will also enjoy this activity book:

This Is How I Do It
Matt Lamothe
Chronicle Books

The creator of This Is How We Do It, Matt Lamothe invites the reader to document his or her own daily life and compare and contrast it with children from over 50 other countries. Included in the book are punch-out postcards, sheets of stickers, a fold-out map and photos of members of four families.

Story Worlds: A Moment in Time

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Story Worlds: A Moment in Time
Thomas Hegbrook
360 degrees

Through this Perpetual Picture Atlas, Thomas Hegbrook takes readers on an amazing global trip that enables us to see, through a series of freeze frame images, what is happening all over the world – in thirty nine time zones – at precisely the same instant in July.

The first spread is a world map that shows and explains these zones and we can then begin our exploration at 6am on two minor outlying islands of the US with curlews taking flight, or perhaps join some children on their walk to school in Honolulu where it’s 8am. Alternatively by moving on a few spreads we find ourselves in the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil where it’s 2pm as it is in Havana, Cuba, in New York and at Angel Falls, Venezuela.

Start at the back and we pay a visit to a Delhi market place still busy at 11.30pm, or watch two boys play a board game in Bangladesh. In Samoa however, it’s 7am and we can share a family’s breakfast or watch children feeding the hens in Tonga. Meanwhile in London it’s 7pm and people are hurrying home from work, whereas across the channel in France it’s 8pm and some Parisians are relaxing with a drink.

The enormous variety of life both human and animal is amazing.

You can also choose to open the book right out and this provides opportunities for comparing and contrasting various parts of the world at a single glance, savouring being in the moment in up to a dozen locations simultaneously.

This fascinating volume (from a Little Tiger imprint) offers learning opportunities aplenty. I envisage groups of children lying flat out on a classroom floor, or sitting around a table with the book standing up, exploring, storying and excitedly discussing each of Hegbrook’s wonderful painterly spreads, all of which offer exciting viewpoints and different layouts. There is also a pictorial index giving a little additional information about the pictures.

Ingenious and absorbing, this is high quality non-fiction with a difference and deserves a place in every classroom collection and on family bookshelves.

I’ve signed the charter