Australia: Tradition, Culture, and Daily Life

by John Perritano

Introduces Australia's culture and customs, discussing the nation's history, religion, family structure, cuisine, educational system, industries, arts and entertainment, and physical and social geography.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

64 pages, Library Binding

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

Over the years, I have written and edited a variety of books, magazines, Web sites, newspapers, and other publications, as well as authoring a number of non-fiction titles.

Most recently, I was a senior editor at Scholastic, the largest publisher of children’s books in the world. I was in charge of hundreds of fiction and non-fiction titles. Currently, I am a full-time freelance writer, penning non-fiction books and articles. My client list includes National Geographic, Discovery.com, Scholastic, various textbook publishers, and others.

Reviews

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly solid overview, but lacking in a couple of key features.
One, there was no map of Australia anywhere in the entire book, so if you don't know where Queensland or New South Wales are, you'll have to look elsewhere for that information, which is a pretty appalling oversight.
Two, there are no headings within chapters; each chapter is simply one long narrative. While page layouts are broken up nicely with pictures and sidebars, it still gets a little wall-of-texty.
There is also a small number of typos.

[Oznasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Aussie reading this book, I think it gives a good introduction to children overseas reading about my country. However, should the publishers decide to do a second edition, they could make one or two improvements by sending it to an Aussie for editing.

[Christina Pilkington · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

An ok overview of the history and culture of Australia written for elementary aged children.