Amanda Rayner

A Life Like Mine: How Children Live Around the World by Harry Belafonte is a great diversity book. It starts out with a map showing where all the children in the book are from. It is a book created in conjunction with UNICEF. In the book it explains what life as a child is like around the world. It talks about what they eat, how some children do not have enough food, and why food is necessary. It also talks about what children have to do in their cultures such as having a full time job. It talks very in depth about the importance of love and play within a family.

This book is a very good book to share with children. Not only does it talk about other cultures but also it shows how in the end we are all the same. We all need love, food, and activity. I recommend this book to anyone teaching in a classroom from 4th grade and up. It might even be okay for 3rd grade, however it talks about some intense topics.… (més)

This is a book about Children All Around The World, but it is very, very different from the books like that which I had as a kid. It's based around the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, so it doesn't just talk about all kinds of children, but it teaches about what basic needs and rights are and the ways all of thoses necessary things are expressed in all different cultures.

Each chapter is centered around some of those rights and needs, and starts with a discussion of how they work in different places, before giving a closer look at one child in one country who may have a very diferent experience in that realm than other children. Because of this, it focuses on what all children have in common before it starts discussing the differences.

This is a wonderful way to get people to look at the things they take for granted, full of bright pictures and interesting stories, and I recommend it not just for kids, but for everyone.

(My friend bought me this for Christmas because she knows I try to write stories set in all kinds of cultures, and this book will be marvellously helpful at that - colorful pictures and all.)… (més)