By Kate DePalma
Thirteen celebrations from around the world, told in rhyme and laid out as a single year, with the facts about each one — what it is, when it falls, how to say its name — collected in the back.
In a bouncing rhyme, the book walks through a year of celebrations around the world: Kodomo no Hi in Japan, Lunar New Year in China, Inti Raymi in Peru, Carnival in Brazil, Nowruz in Iran, Dia de Muertos in Mexico, the New Yam Festival in Nigeria, Diwali in India, and more. Each one gets a spread of Martina Peluso's warm art and a few rhyming lines that catch what the day feels like: the light, the food, the crowd of people. Then the back of the book carries the real detail — what each festival is, when it happens, how to say its name, and a calendar that lays the whole year out at once. On the surface it reads aloud like a song; underneath it works like a small reference.
This is the wide-angle festival book, and the rhyme is what makes it move: a whole class can travel thirteen countries in a few minutes and want to go back. The risk with a format like this is that a fast rhyming tour may flatten each celebration into a pretty picture and little else. The back matter is what keeps it grounded. The notes give every festival its real facts, its date, and its name said correctly, so you can stop anywhere the rhyme skimmed and turn a spread into something a child actually learns. Use it for the range and for the calendar. Then pair it with a book that lives inside one celebration, so the class gets to go deep on at least one of them.