The World Turns Round and Round - Softcover

Nicki Weiss is the author-artist of many popular picture books, including Where Does the Brown Bear Go? and If You're Happy and You Know It. After many years of creating picture books, she decided to become an elementary school teacher. She received her master's degree from Bank Street College of Education and now teaches reading and art in a public school in New York City's East Village.

Weiss (Where Does the Brown Bear Go?) goes global with a multiethnic cast who demonstrates that, despite differences in language, dress and culture, it really is a small world after all. The author uses a rhythmic question-and-answer format for a series of questions involving clothing: "What was sent to the lucky girl/ From her tante on the Haitian isle?" ("From Port-au-Prince came a chemise aux fleurs./ How it flattered her,/ That chemise aux fleurs/ From Haiti, island of green.") Each spread of sturdy colored-pencil illustrations shows the child's relative carrying a parcel in his or her native land (including foreign stamps in the margin when appropriate) on the left, and on the right, the child sporting the new togs. The ending ties everything up neatly ("We're part of here and part of there,/ And the world turns round and round"); the children gather around a globe at school, dressed in their various garments. More fitting for the classroom than repeated readings, the volume includes a map that pinpoints each of the locations and a glossary for everything from "ba" ("grandmother" in Vietnamese) to "kaffiyeh" (an Egyptian shawl). Ages 5-up. (Oct.)
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