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Offers a brief survey of Mexican history, culture, society, language, and character, and includes craft projects
- GenresNonfiction
32 pages, Library Binding
First published June 1, 1994
About the author
Anita Ganeri
1,714 books62 followersAnita Ganeri is a highly experienced author of children’s information books, specialising in religion, India/Asia, multiculturalism, geography, biography and natural history. She became a freelance writer after working at Walker Books (as foreign rights manager) and Usborne Publishing (as an editor). Since then, she has written over 300 titles, including the best-selling Horrible Geography series for Scholastic. The series won the Geographical Association Silver Award in 1999 and was cited as being ‘an innovation that all geographers will applaud’. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society where she conducts most of her research for the books.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 27, 2018
...because we really need to define what a taco is and its totally fine to not put a pronunciation on mole. Its moh-leh... I sure hope kids don't go around thinking Mexican people and Hispanic Americans with Mexican ancestors eat little rodents. I can just imagine the horror when they go to their first Mexican food restaurant that sells mole (moh-leh) and think that they sell mole (rodent) meat, because they don't know that it is different due to an overall lack of knowledge on the pronunciation which easily could be avoided if this book cared to provide it.
August 2, 2020
3.5 stars
Miss 6 and I read this as part of our unit on Mexico. She really liked the overall framing (i.e. the idea that a boy and his dog were on holiday; she really liked spotting them in their 'selfies'). She really liked the colour photos that are used and talking about them (although she would have liked more animals). The content has a large font and a little information on each page. It was a better overview than some of the other books in the junior children's section but is very 'lite'. For us it worked because I was reading it to her and it was after we'd already done more detailed research into some areas, so, for instance we were able to look at the artist's rendering of Hernan Cortes and Montezuma and with some prompting she was able to remember the wider details of that meeting (which the text definitely does not go into). As noted by one of the other reviewers, there is also a lack of pronunciation cues (which, let's face it, are easy enough to add). Some words I was already familiar with, or have read recently (in books with the pronunciation provided), but there were others where I explained to her that I was guessing how to read and say the word.
It's a good book for what it is (i.e. engaging 5-6 year old children to engage with a discussion about a non-fiction text and look at the pictures) but does require an adult to provide a wider context.
Miss 6 and I like to explore different books and authors at the library, sometimes around particular topics or themes. We try to get different ones out every week or so; it's fun for both of us to have the variety and to look at a mix of new & favourite authors.
Miss 6 and I read this as part of our unit on Mexico. She really liked the overall framing (i.e. the idea that a boy and his dog were on holiday; she really liked spotting them in their 'selfies'). She really liked the colour photos that are used and talking about them (although she would have liked more animals). The content has a large font and a little information on each page. It was a better overview than some of the other books in the junior children's section but is very 'lite'. For us it worked because I was reading it to her and it was after we'd already done more detailed research into some areas, so, for instance we were able to look at the artist's rendering of Hernan Cortes and Montezuma and with some prompting she was able to remember the wider details of that meeting (which the text definitely does not go into). As noted by one of the other reviewers, there is also a lack of pronunciation cues (which, let's face it, are easy enough to add). Some words I was already familiar with, or have read recently (in books with the pronunciation provided), but there were others where I explained to her that I was guessing how to read and say the word.
It's a good book for what it is (i.e. engaging 5-6 year old children to engage with a discussion about a non-fiction text and look at the pictures) but does require an adult to provide a wider context.
Miss 6 and I like to explore different books and authors at the library, sometimes around particular topics or themes. We try to get different ones out every week or so; it's fun for both of us to have the variety and to look at a mix of new & favourite authors.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews