ANNOTATION

Explores the ways in which people from a variety of cultures carry their young ones, and describes what children see and learn as they are carried.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Through a steamy rain forest in Brazil, along a river in Papua New Guinea, across a frozen inlet in the artic, this book takes young children on a far-reaching journey to discover how babies worldwide are carried and what they see from their unique vantage points. The text and full-color illustrations are supplemented by an extensive glossary about the 11 cultures featured in this book.

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Dia L. Michels

The Bernhards take readers around the world to examine how babies are carried in different cultures. The need to discover ways that mothers can be with their babies, while getting work done at the same time, has motivated a variety of different baby-carrying methods. This book also examines the types of work that the mothers are engaging in. In the mountains of Guatemala, mothers wrap their babies in shawls about their bodies while they prepare the day's meals. Meanwhile, a mother living in the Arctic region holds her baby in her big hood as she kneels to ice-fish. For readers interested in more information on the cultures of the peoples presented here, short introductions to each culture are presented at the back of the book.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2This lovely book looks at how people from various countries carry their youngsters while going about their daily chores. Each double-page spread introduces a different culture from a child's point of view. Gouache paintings done in rich, deeply saturated colors appear opposite a page of simple text that explains a little bit about the people and their activities. The artwork conveys the action clearly and provides an appealing glimpse of each locale. At the end of the book, explanatory notes offer additional details. On the end papers, a map of the world shows the approximate location of the people depicted in the text. Young readers will notice the similarities among these diverse groups, not only in the ways babies are carried but also in some of the caregivers' chores. Use this book with Ann Morris's Bread, Bread, Bread (Lothrop, 1989), Edith Baer's This Is the Way We Go to School (Scholastic, 1992), Norah Dooley's Everybody Cooks Rice (Carolrhoda, 1991), or Nigel Gray's A Country Far Away (Orchard, 1989) to celebrate our multicultural world.Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, New York City

Kirkus Reviews

In a work subtitled "A Day of Baby Carrying Around the World," the Bernhards (The Way of the Willow Branch, p. 370, etc.) demonstrate the universal methods for keeping babies safe while people work and play. A West African baby sleeps on his mother's back while she fetches water; an Inuit baby nestles in the hood of his mother's parka as she fishes through the ice; a Peruvian baby rides in a shawl on her mother's back while the mother herds sheep in the Andes. The Bernhards visit 12 diverse cultures, examining the work of the adults from the point of view of small children who are along for the ride. This is an exquisite book, for the detailed, folk-art style gouache illustrations, its overall design, and the wealth of information it includes. World maps show the location of each featured parent and baby, who are discussed in a cultural context, with one full-page illustration and one attractive, bordered page of text. Many preschoolers won't sit still for all the facts, but they will love the pictures of babies sleeping, watching, participating; older children will find the information compelling and can locate more details in notes at the back.