Feasts and Festivals Around the World: From Lunar New Year to Christmas

by Alice B. McGinty, Tomoko Suzuki (Illustrator)

Overview

Explore the celebrations and feasts of twelve countries and cultures from around the world!

From South Korea to Nigeria to the USA, come celebrate festivals throughout the year! People around the world are celebrating. In Australia, it's Christmas in summer with barbecues on the beach. In Thailand, they're celebrating Songkran, the famous Buddhist water festival. Rhyming text and graphic illustrations pair perfectly and invite young readers to explore the world through mesmerizing festivals.

A stunning companion to Pancakes to Parathas: Breakfast Around the World!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781499812176
Publisher:	little bee books
Publication date:	03/08/2022
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	656,920
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Alice B. McGinty loves to travel and get to know people, places, and foods around the world. Alice is the award-winning author of over forty children's books, fiction and nonfiction, including Rabbi Benjamin's Buttons, a 2015 Sydney Taylor Notable Book, and the picture book biographies Gandhi: A March to the Sea, a 2014 South Asia Book Award honor book, and Darwin: With Glimpses into His Private Journal and Letters, a 2010 Orbis Pictus Honor Book and Booklist 2009 Top Ten Biographies for Youth.

Tomoko Suzuki loves festivals. The delicious food, the lively music, the laughter of the people. . . .It's all an exciting feeling. Dreaming of such festivals around the world, she works as an illustrator for various media such as children's books, advertisements, and products.
Her last picture book was a journey through breakfast. She is happy to be back with Alice again on this journey through the world's feasts and festivals!

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2022

PreS-Gr 3—Across the span of a year's four seasons, readers learn about how 12 different countries observe a traditional holiday. Each holiday is described as a way to give thanks, honor loved ones, and come together as a community. Have you ever done the Small Frog Dance to celebrate summer's longest day? The Swedes do! Or perhaps there is one day in the year when you are allowed to splash your grandparents with cold water, as part of a celebration called Songkran, a Buddhist water festival meant to provide some relief during the hottest part of the year. The pages are laid out in spreads, with a short rhyming introduction to the festival on the left page. On the right page, in tiny unattractive font, is a more detailed and interesting description of the ways in which the people of each country celebrate. Across the two-page span is a colorful array of the artifacts, people, and foods one would expect to see in that country during their holiday season. The author conveys just enough information to give kids a good sense of how the holiday is celebrated. The last two pages include a map of the world with each country's location identified, along with their flag and a drawing of the food most closely associated with their festival. This introductory book is meant for young readers, but the readability of the text is complex enough that it will take a more experienced reader to decode the descriptions. A table of contents or index would have been helpful. VERDICT For any collection in need of more books on international celebrations, this will suffice; but without a table of contents or index, students conducting research projects on specific countries may overlook this one.—Maggie Chase

School Library Journal