My First Geography Book: The World Tour of Stuffed Toys around their Apartment

by Igor Okunev, Katya Kolmakov (Translator), Olga Baron (Illustrator)

A boy and his stuffed animals start a journey around their apartment. They find out that the apartment is a kingdom that has mountains, rivers, and cities, that everything in it has its purpose, and that the most important place in it is near the parent bedroom. They will also learn what a real geographer needs to leave the house, and finally, after looking into the laws of geography, our characters will venture to explore the world around them. Do you have any maps, atlases, or geography books? Have you already travelled, and how did you prepare for those trips? Did you take your stuffed friends with you? Let's study geography together!

Use #myfirstgeographybook to share your stuffed toys geographic explorations with other book readers.

44 pages, Hardcover

Published October 22, 2020

About the author

Igor Okunev has master’s degree in history from the University of Manchester and doctoral degree in political science from MGIMO University. He is a Professorial Research Fellow at MGIMO University and Director of its Center for Spatial Analysis in International Relations. He is a Co-Chair of Research Committee on Geopolitics at the International Political Science Association. His work focuses on political geography, critical geopolitics, federalism and capital cities.

Reviews

[Vinit Bagdai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book: My First Geography Book
Rating: 5/5
Author: Igor Okunev

Blurb –
A boy and his stuffed animals start a journey around their apartment. They find out that the apartment is a kingdom that has mountains, rivers, and cities, that everything in it has its purpose, and that the most important place in it is near the parent bedroom. They will also learn what a real geographer needs to leave the house, and finally, after looking into the laws of geography, our characters will venture to explore the world around them. Do you have any maps, atlases, or geography books? Have you already travelled, and how did you prepare for those trips? Did you take your stuffed friends with you? Let's study geography together!

Review

Book is divided into 4 chapters in which all the chapters have different stories altogether.
Author had been reading World Atlas night before and forgot to put it away on shelf, so next day when he got up he saw different toys were discussing were to go, how to go, they started arguments with each other to go at different places, but Author said you can’t go to any place directly, you should have some sort of knowledge about the place.
He said every person on planet earth should know about the different places of the world.

All the stuffed animals started discussing about the rivers, mountains, different places inside there room itself. All had different arguments with each other at some point.
Everyone became geographer themselves and started with their thoughts. Almost every page had some glorious Illustrations which helps you to connect with the story more.
Lastly, It was a lovely read for me and I would like to thank the Author Igor Okunev giving me the opportunity to review the book.
#BookReview
#BookReviewer

[Children's Bookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting way to introduce geography to someone who hasn’t been exposed to it before. I was expecting a book of maps or introduction to various landforms and vocabulary etc... totally not that at all. It’s a perfect read aloud and filled with humor. The narrator is awakened by a bunch of stuffed animals arguing around the atlas. They all want to go to different places but don’t really have any clue how that all works. The narrator decides to explain more about geography by using the apartment they’re in as their geographical space and look at where everything is and why and what objects and places can represent the different things we find in nature like rivers, mountains, cities and oceans. They go through the whole house and really use their imaginations designing their little theoretical world. They eventually move it outside and include different landmarks from the neighborhood on their map.
I love how the book includes so many stuffed animals with different personalities and they all have a wonderful child like innocence to them. It’s really a lovely way to present educational content. Very cool 👍

[Kidliomag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do You Love stuffed toys? I know you do.. so get ready for the world tour with your soft toys.This is such a fun and adventurous read for children, they can collect their soft toys while reading and do a role-play too.   What a clever concept to teach children about geography, the environment, and all the aspects of the world like continents, countries, rivers, mountains, etc.  
I always find Geography very boring but this book is presented in such a manner that makes this book super entertaining and a delightful read for me. I hope this book was in my school syllabus so geography will be my favorite subject.
This story is about a boy and his stuffed animals, one day all stuffed toys find his atlas book and they talk about how we will go there, the penguin wanted to go Antarctica, the kangaroo wanted to go Australia and so on.
They started their journey around their apartment to find out that the apartment is a kingdom that has mountains, rivers, and cities, that everything in it has its purpose, and that the most important place in it is near the parent bedroom.
There are so many different animals in this book and it is really good to read how they talked about maps, different places and how we have to take care of our environment, etc. 
This book is just the perfect way to introduce geography to the children so they can learn geography in a playful way. Illustrations are all hand-painted that enhance the concept of this book. Overall this book is a learning journey for children.
Perfect for 3+

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting way to teach children (and their adults) how to envision their surroundings in relationship to other concepts. Why can't the bathtub be in the middle of the bedroom? Why can't our afternoon walk take us to Africa? Why must we help sort the garbage before we have an adventure?
Some of the "governmental concepts" may be a little advanced for the youngest of listeners, but all makes sense in the telling.
The narration is very well done.

[Angeline Gallant · Rating 5 out of 5]

My son really enjoyed this book.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting way to teach children (and their adults) how to envision their surroundings in relationship to other concepts. Why can't the bathtub be in the middle of the bedroom? Why can't our afternoon walk take us to Africa? Why must we help sort the garbage before we have an adventure?
Some of the "governmental concepts" may be a little advanced for the youngest of listeners, but all makes sense in the telling.
The narration is very well done.