Jane Brierley (1935–2023)

I really enjoyed this book because of how well organized the information is as well as how engaging the illustrations are. Every page in this book shows an expanded map of the world. It first starts out with a flat globe view and then zooms in on North America, the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia in the following pages. Each map shows the different regional characteristics, native wildlife, things that the certain countries and states are known for, along with activities that people do there. Even through each map takes up two full pages in this big book, there is also a compass, key, and description box for each major region which helps further the reader’s understanding.

The illustrations are very colorful and easy to navigate because each state is a different color, which helps your eyes break up the information into clear sections. On the United States pages, Mount Rushmore can easily be spotted in South Dakota, Lobster can be seen off the coast of Main and a race car is shown near the capital of Indianapolis. By having many characteristics of each state on the map it helps to put things into perspective when trying to understand how the United States is laid out. I liked how the illustrated characteristics in the key and on the map were actual representations of the animals and landmarks because it made the map more clear and helped me understand what palaces were similar and which were very different. For example, much of western Europe had grapes and mountain ranges where norther Europe had a lot of lumbering take place. Even though Italy and Finland are on the same continent, it is easy to see that their geographical regions are very different. The key did not represent every shown characteristic on the map because that would not be necessary. For example, the Eifel Tower is shown in Paris along with a camera which expresses to the reader that Paris is a place where people come to visit and take pictures of this structure. The key did not represent this because the reader can interpret the easy to see pictures for themselves. Overall this was a very useful world atlas the was fun to read.… (meer)

"I hardly know where to begin to tell you how bad this book is, so I'll begin with the good and edge my way to the rest. The novelty of a hardcover book with board pages actually threw me off, at first. I've never come across one before and I like it. The board pages are easy for small fingers to manipulate and the pages wipe clean. The illustrations are bright and colorful and fun, with lots of adorable animals and come fun details. Everything else stinks.

The rhyme is terrible because many of the "rhymes" don't actually RHYME, or are terrible efforts. "Portrait" is paired with "see it", "good" with "food", and "morning" with "snoring". Although "beaver" and "lever" CAN rhyme, most kids learn the pronunciation of lever that would NOT rhyme with "beaver," and I just don't see beginning readers being the sort you ought to mess with for no reason. Learning to read is hard enough.

There is no storyline, here. Ricky throws out a pair of sometimes-rhyming lines under a cute illustration and then another, and another. The lines do not add up to a story, and the illustrations are not tied to one another in any way - they're just THERE, each apart from the rest."
-review from Anna M. Ligtenberg (AnnaLovesBooks) on Amazon… (meer)