Product Description

This is suitable for ages 5-10. This book invites children to experience, taste, and embrace the daily lives of children from the far corners of the earth. In 365 days of experiences, it breaks down stereotypes and replaces them with the fascinating realities of our differences and our similarities.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #124119 in Books
• Published on: 1992-08-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

About the Author
Susan Milord

Customer Reviews

A huge disappointment!
I should preface this review by noting that I purchased this book for a play setting and am reviewing it in respect of the use I feel it will (or will not) be in developing activities and play in that setting.

My decision to purchase this book was in large part guided by the 'reviews' in the product information, which implied that the book would be an informative guide to different creative and cultural activities. I was hoping to find ideas and information about cultural themed activities for - as implied by the title - the 365 days of the year.

I was hugely disappointed.

There are certainly some such ideas in there, with details of the countries/cultures etc they derive from, suggestions on how to engage children in learning about these etc, but much - far too much in my opinion - of the book offers nothing new or particularly interesting or inspiring in respect of (quoted from the review in the product information) inviting "...children to experience, taste, and embrace the daily lives of children from the far corners of the earth. In 365 days of experiences, it breaks down stereotypes and replaces them with the fascinating realities of our differences and our similarities."

I suspect that the majority of people considering purchasing this book will be working in some sort of child care/play environment. That being the case, I would really hope that they are able to come up with ideas such as 'Make greetings cards', 'Make wrapping paper', 'Have a snack', (and many other similar ideas), without needing additional guidance! Other 'ideas' in the book - 'Go to bed', 'Get dressed for school', 'Leave room for dessert', 'Lay the table', 'Make a metric conversion chart', (and many others in a similarily uninspiring vein) offer little to nothing in regard of exploring cultural diversity or breaking down stereotypes. The additonal info under these, and other, headings seem to stretch the connections to those themes rather thin, and I suspect that too many of these 'ideas' were put in just to make the numbers up to the 365.

If you are looking for interesting, fun, engaging activities which do encourage exploration of, and learning about other cultures then I suspect you'll get a lot more that fits that remit by using common sense and basic knowledge, and - for more specific ideas - putting dates/countries etc into a search engine. As said, there are some activities which do clearly explore other cultures etc, but the number of others which rather stretch the concept beyond anything really useful or interesting, unfortunately overwhelm them.