Wake Up, World!: A Day in the Life of Children Around the World

by Beatrice Hollyer, Oxfam

Shakeel rides to school in an autorickshaw. Sasha builds houses in the snow. Cidinha helps her mother crack nuts to trade at the market. All around the world children are waking up, going to school, helping their families, and playing with their friends.

Wake Up, World! follows eight children from eight different countries as each one goes through his or her day. Young readers can see how their own lives compare with other children's in such diverse places as Ghana and Russia, Australia and Vietnam, Brazil and England, India and the United States. A portion of the proceeds for this book will be donated to Oxfam, a non-profit organization working to address the causes of poverty and social injustice.

Genres: Nonfiction, Cultural, Picture Books, Russia, India, British Literature, Brazil

48 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 1999

Reviews

[Khearn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: The book follows the daily life of eight children in different countries, Page, Natali, Cidinha
Anusibuno, Sasha, Lin, Alexis, and Shakeel. It goes through what morning, school, fun, and meals looks like in different countries. The author points out similarities between the countries even though we’re all different.

Rating: This wasn’t my favorite book. However, it will be very beneficial to read in my classroom. The only reason I didn’t love the book was because it didn’t follow a normal story line and that’s just my personal preference.

Use in Classroom: I would use this book in my classroom to teach about different cultures. I did like that the author points out the similarities in the different cultures. I think it’s very important to teach students about different places around the world.

[Maren Prestegaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated but oh so good.

[Smurf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book! It was so interesting to see the normal, daily life of other cultures. I think children would enjoy seeing these other cultures and families as well.

[Josie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal reaction-
I really enjoyed reading this information book; I thought it was a good way to express multicultural awareness. I enjoyed exploring the lives of eight children from different countries.
Purpose in classroom
I would read this book aloud during a social studies unit. This would be a great resource to use when discussing different cultures and races around the world. It would expand the students mind on diversity as they explore how it would be like to live in places such as Ghana, Russia, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil, England, and India. This would be a great book for children from third to fifth. It would be a good book to read to second graders however I feel like the sentence structure may be a little too complex for their age group. The students could really relate the age of the characters that are mentioned in the book. The literary elements that could be taught in this book are to have the students compare and contrast their lives to other cultures. They could do activity where they would have to pull out similarities and differences they have with a child from a different country.

[Staci Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book purely because of how it related to children everywhere. I am a firm believer that if you are trying to get kids to understand a concept about anything it needs to be interactive and engaging. Students respond much better to things they are familiar with. If they have a correct understanding of the basic concept you as the teacher are then able to take that and connect it to other things. Relating the different children and their routines is a great example of this process. If I were a student reading this I would be able to say someone in China is just like me but we are also very different in these ways. Which is what the book was trying to get across. Great book and great connector for kids.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eight children from seven continents share the common threads of their lives - waking up, eating breakfast, going to school, etc. The photos are great, and it's good to see how our lives, no matter how different in details, are very much the same. I always caution, though, the sense that one person can be seen as representing an entire nation. Not every child in Brazil cracks hundreds of nuts to earn money for the family, and not child in the US has "lots of toys, games, and books of her own". Still, a nice, broad view of kids' lives.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 6 year-old son could not put this book down for two weeks! Every night at bedtime, this is the book he'd choose to go over and over again. He really enjoyed getting to know the children from several countries and appreciate their differences. Aside from showing a brief overview of how the children days go by, it shows a little about their diets as well. I wrote a very brief review in my blog: http://www.raisingaselfreliantchild.c....

Two thumbs up for keeping a child engaged!!!

[Kendra Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Throughout my entire life I have enjoyed reading books like this. I think it is an excellent way to introduce children to a different culture. Often times our worlds tend to only revolve around the area in which we live, and it is a nice reminder that there are other people that share and inhabit this planet too. I also think that it was really good that nothing negative was said about any of the cultures within the text. This book can also unify the children around the world by pointing out our similarities instead of our differences. Great book!

[Ellis Brodowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a child I would always search for books similar to this particular one because I loved to see how children like me were doing around the world. I believe this would also be enjoyable for children to read as well because it can help them see that even though they are from different parts of the world, they complete similar tasks throughout the day and they really aren't that different. I also enjoyed how the book followed real children around the world instead of just illustrated them.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows 8 children in California, England, Brazil, Ghana, Russia, Vietnam, Australia, and India as they go about their day, from waking up in the morning, going to school, playing and doing chores, to going to bed. What I found most interesting was the various types of beds that everyone slept on, and the different ways they ate their meals.
A great book for multicultural studies!

[Lynnette · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is a great read for kids. It is a great resource for early childhood social studies educators. When teaching cultural perspectives, teachers can use this book in their classroom. It is about a day in the life of a child in different parts of the world. It's theme is that though people are different, we are quite similar too.

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was extremely interesting. It followed the lives of children around the world and showed what they did in their daily lives. I think this would be a great book for kids to see how other cultures live. It was informative and easy to read. This would be a great book to use to teach children about differences in people.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice picture book that compares a day in the life of children from different countries all over the world. We get to see what they wear, where they live, what their school is like, what they eat for dinner. Good for teaching geography or multicultural units.

[Fernando · Rating 5 out of 5]

this books is about eight kids in eight country's with eight different cultures and ways of living. how they play what they eat what the do is vivid with alot of pictures. this book shows how different kids have a different life how all of them have a different way of living life of enjoying life.

[Lauren Busdicker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book because it was very diverse. I loved learning about all of the different cultures of the children. It made me realize how lucky I am to live here in the United States. We are very blessed here.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I'm say, I'm a sucker for a book about children's everyday lives all over the world. This is a good one. Simple but interesting.

[Room 123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was good because it was about kids like us. We really liked the photographs.

[Deawna Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives a pretty good contrast to children's lives around the world. It was very interesting to see what every child does to go to school, to go to eat, and much more.

[Ana Loza · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read about how differnt kids all over the world wake up , i read that a little boy takes a shower outside with a bucket and then has break fast.