This Is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World
Common Sense Media Review
By Jan Carr
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Fun, relatable look at kids' daily lives around globe.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 5+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
THIS IS HOW WE DO IT: ONE DAY IN THE LIVES OF SEVEN KIDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD describes the daily lives of seven real kids from various countries across the globe: Italy, Japan, Peru, Uganda, Russia, India, and Iran. It opens with their portraits and portraits of their families and homes, then breaks down the specifics of each kid's day: what they eat, how they get to school, what they study, how they play, their chores, where they sleep. The book ends with a picture of the night sky, implying that no matter how different our lives are, we all live under the same sky. There are photographs of the actual families featured and a glossary defining and explaining foreign words.
Is It Any Good?
The genius of this book is that it takes what’s common about kids' experiences -- school, chores, eating, playing -- and details the specifics, making what's foreign fun and relatable. This Is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World serves up cultural information in interesting and manageable chunks. The overarching message of cultural tolerance is never hammered home directly but underlies all art and text.
The art, created digitally from photographs, can sometimes look a bit static or mechanical, but the kids and the details of their activities and lives are completely engaging. There's so much juicy information -- the family in India sleeps together on a huge bed, the boy from Italy gets to visit the forest on school trips, the girl from Uganda passes groves of eucalyptus and banana trees each morning as she walks to school -- that the book will warrant reading and rereading. This educational and highly entertaining book is an excellent choice for families to talk about and share.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about all the daily routines in This Is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World. What new information did you learn, and what interested you the most?
For each page or category, draw a picture and write a short paragraph about yourself. What do you do that’s similar? What do you do that's different?
Why do you think the author/illustrator ended the book not with a picture of the kids but with the line "This is my night sky" and an illustration of the moon and stars?
Book Details
- Author: Matt Lamothe
- Illustrator: Matt Lamothe
- Genre: Picture Book
- Topics: Great Boy Role Models , Great Girl Role Models
- Book type: Non-Fiction
- Publisher: Chronicle Books
- Publication date: May 2, 2017
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 5 - 8
- Number of pages: 52
- Available on: Nook, Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: July 13, 2017
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