Our World, by Sue Lowell Gallion/Illustrated by Lisk Feng, (July 2020, Phaidon Press), $18.95, ISBN: 9781838660819
Ages 2-6
School’s… kind of in session? Traveling is still a bit shaky, but we all know that books take us everywhere we want to go, and Sue Lowell Gallion – author of one of my favorite picture book series, Pug & Pig – is our tour guide on a trip around the world. Our World is an oversized board book, perfect for exploring eyes and hands, that opens into a freestanding globe. The youngest learners will enjoy the 3-D design and the descriptive rhyming text, brief and evocative all at once: “Many places to explore, / From mountain peaks to ocean floor. / Look around you, step outside… / Find forests tall, and grasslands wide.” Emerging readers and school-age learners will love the facts and thought-provoking questions that run through the book, inviting readers to think about where they live and how their home environment fits into the world at large. Lisk Feng’s illustrations present gorgeous world landscapes, from icy tundras to lush rain forests, making each turn of the page an exciting new adventure. Look at that cover! If you’re able to zoom in, you’ll see penguins hanging out at the bottom of the base, inhabiting their own little South Pole, as lions, elephants, and zebras race across the African Savanna and trees and mountains dot the American Pacific Northwest and Canadian wilderness. An outstanding beginner’s atlas for our younger readers, with a rhyming story that will invite them to fall in love with nonfiction.
Author Sue Lowell Gallion has great resources available on her author page including activity guides for Our World, with ideas for reading and engaging even our youngest listeners.
Mom Read It 