Around the World Books

As you know, we've been traveling Around the World with our unit studies this year.  I have so enjoyed this, as it's allowed me to learn much I did not know about the world outside our country's borders.

For many of our units, we've referred to the same basic books or series, so I thought I'd share them here in one post for reference.  You can click on any book to go to a page about it specifically.

Most of our information has been gathered from books by Bobbie Kalman.  Our two favorite series are The Lands, Peoples and Cultures Series and Spotlight on My Country, with the latter having the perfect amount of text for Jacob's level.  After we read the book, I'll make Jacob a list of questions or activities to complete, giving page number hints if needed, and he's learning how to research a little bit.

The "Look What Came From" series has a been an enjoyable one as well.  It offers facts Jacob can relate to about the origins of many of our favorite things.

This is one of my favorite resources for a general overview.  I usually forget I have it and end up getting a book from the library, but I'm always happy when I pull it out!

This is a great book that gives snippets of what a child's life is like in their country.

In addition to non-fiction books, we've read a lot of picture books that illustrate the culture in them as well.  These give us some snuggle on the couch time.  They also give me a way to connect Mattie to 

This book in general is a bit over Jacob's head for sure, but it does have some useful information to show him.  It's a great coffee table book that provides a quick reality check about how good we have it here in our wealthy country.  Once I sit down to look at it, my nose is  buried in it for an hour.  There is another book authored by the same people called What the World Eats.

This one we used only during our study of the Middle East and Holy Lands (is that redundant?), but it proved to be invaluable.  I have looked for it several times since then during my own personal Bible study! Honestly, I understand the nightly news a whole lot better after using this book as a resource!  Rose Publishing has a lot of great resources.  (I think I'm about to buy this timeline, because I'm doing such a poor job of keeping mine up.)

And last but certainly not least, this is a book we just added recently, and I'm sad I didn't order it in the beginning.  It has a one page spread on many countries or people groups which shares cultural information about them.  The neatest part is that it includes religious information from a Christian world view, most importantly, how we can pray for them.  If you chose only one book to order, this is the one you want.  One of the main focuses of mine in doing this Around the World study was to help Jacob see how big the world there really is around us.  It's really hard to imagine for me even, so I know it's hard for him too.  But this book has helped us pray and focus on the most important needs of the people God created that seem so far away because they live in different lands.

If you decide to do an Around the World journey via books, these books should certainly get you started!  If you know of any others I'd enjoy, let me know!  We still have 3 more continents before we land!