Homes Around the World

School Library Journal

K-Gr 2-These books do nothing to incite youngsters' curiosity or interest. In both titles, readers are led through the subject matter by two children whose responses to the world's diversity fail to provide any meaningful insight into or respect for the variety of experience possible. Information is introduced through artificial or unnecessary means such as ``Climb aboard the magic carpet,'' or ``Let's go and see some of them in the magic helicopter.'' Drawings of the pair dominate the pages while photographs of the homes or people to be studied are of poor quality. A small unlabeled map orients readers to the geographic location being visited, but it has no global context in terms of even identifying the appropriate continent. Other illustrations do little to enhance the presentation as their relationship to the topic is sometimes purely associative and would have limited relevance to primary-grade audiences. Better books on these subjects include Ann Morris's Houses and Homes (Lothrop, 1992), Arthur Dorros's This Is My House (Scholastic, 1992), and Peter Spier's People (Doubleday, 1980).-Melissa Gross, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA