Book

Children make up one-third of the world's population. But who are these 2.2 billion children and what are their lives like? Author David J. Smith's search for answers takes readers around the world to meet children of all ages, nationalities and religions.

At this moment, there are 7 billion people on the planet! It's hard to picture so many people at one time - but what if we imagine the whole world as a village of just 100 people?

In this village:
21 people speak a Chinese dialect
10 earn less than two dollars a day
14 cannot read or write
45 have a television in their homes
47 do not always have enough to eat

What we eat says a lot about who we are and where we come from. The five children in this book live in very different countries, and they each have their own ideas about what tastes good. But they have lots in common, too: they all go food shopping and help with the cooking, share mealtimes with their families, eat special foods to celebrate, and have things they love to eat and things they definitely don't.

Wherever we live in this world—whether our country is rich or poor—water is vital to our survival on this planet. This book follows the daily lives of children in Peru,Mauritania, the United States, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Tajikistan, and explores what water means to them.Where does it come from? How do they use it?

With the growing threat of climate change affecting all our lives, this book invites discussion on the ways different countries and cultures value this most precious of our planet’s natural resources.

Step into unique homes from around the world and discover the many fascinating ways in which people live and have lived.

Around The World Through Holidays: Cross Curricular Readers Theatre includes scripts for twelve plays adaptable for any of the reading or performance methods of Readers Theatre presentation. Each play introduces students to a specific world culture by looking at holidays celebrated in that culture. The structure of the book introduces holidays chronologically throughout a calendar year—one play per month. The focus is on literacy and social studies, so the book is not tied to the traditional nine-month school calendar.

Children from 192 countries around the world tell us about their homelands in words

America: The Story of Us is a full-color, deluxe history that is at once penetrating and lively, elegant and authoritative—as perfect for serious reading as it is for casual skimming. A companion to the groundbreaking HISTORY™ series America: The Story of Us, this stunning volume illuminates the epic story of our nation in a new way for a new generation.

Amanda Freebold doesn't know what to do. Her father left three years ago for the new colony of Jamestown, in America, thousands of miles away. All Amanda has to remember him by is a little brass lion's head he gave his family to guard them while he is gone. Now her mother has just died, leaving Amanda to take care of her younger brother and sister.

Do you ever wonder where inventors get their ideas? Benjamin Franklin was one of the most famous inventors in American history, and according to this book he got most of his ideas—the good ones at any rate—from a mouse!

Funny and Wise, Ben and Me is a classic American story that celebrates its sixtieth anniversary in 1999. It has amused generations of young people, and once you've read it and met Amos, the mouse who tells the story, you will never think of Benjamin Franklin, or American history, quite the same way again.

Twelve -year-old Mary Jemison took her peaceful days on her family's farm in eastern Pennsylvania for granted. But on a spring day in 1758, something happened that changed her life forever. A band of warriors invaded the house and took the Jemison family captive. Mary was separated from her parents and brothers and sister. She traveled with the Indians to southern Ohio and later to a Seneca village on the Genesee River in what is now western New York.

Ellen Toliver is shocked to learn that her grandfather is a patriot spy. Then he's injured on the day of an important mission - and she's the only one who can take his place. It's the last thing shy, timid Ellen wants to do, but her grandfather, and her country, are depending on her.

In the 1820s, twelve-year-old Kanah and ten-year-old Patty journey with their family from Vermont, over the Mohawk Turnpike and Ridge Road, to a new farm in western New York State.

Samuel Eaton is a young boy living in an early American settlement in the year 1627, and today is the day he will help with his first rye harvest! If he can prove to his father he's up to the task, he will be able to help with all of the harvest. But harvesting rye is even more difficult than he expected. Was he foolish to think he could do a man's work?

Destination Unknown...

Pedro de Salcedo could not have known what adventures lay ahead! His incredible voyage as ship's boy aboard Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria would bring both danger and excitement. Pedro captured his experience between the pages of a journal. If he did not return alive perhaps someone, someday would find it and learn of his incredible journey to the new world.