My School in the Rain Forest

October 1, 2009
Gr 1-5-From stories and photos she received from people around the world, Ruurs chose 13 school situations to share with readers. She shows the great contrasts that exist, even in a geographic region, where an international school in Malaysia has a library with 16,000 books while the Rajgir Monastery School in nearby Myanmar has "almost no teaching materials such as maps, posters, or even books." The book also demonstrates that children learn in a variety of settings by featuring a boarding school in Scotland and classes provided by radio and the Internet in the Australian outback. An inset box on each spread includes a map, flag, and a few facts about the featured area. Ruurs mentions the work of charitable organizations and volunteer groups in countries including Guatemala and India and notes setbacks such as the destruction of a school in Afghanistan. Still, the overriding tone is optimistic that more children, girls as well as boys, will participate in education around the world. This book might also be paired with "Listen to the Wind" (Dial, 2009), Greg Mortenson's personal account of establishing schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan."Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2009
Grades 2-5 The subtitle sums up this book more accurately than its title, as its scope is much broader than one school or one ecosystem. Organized alphabetically from Afghanistan to a World school aboard a hospital ship, the book introduces 13 schools, including home schools in Australia and the U.S., a floating school on a Cambodian lake, a village school in Guatemala, a monastery school in Myanmar, and one operated by a global charity. Each double-page spread includes several paragraphs of text, four color photos, and a fact box with information about the country, a drawing of its flag, and a map. Typically, the text introduces the school, its setting, and the community, then talks about one or two students and sometimes includes a comment from one of them. Although many of the individual accounts of schools are only mildly interesting, the book as a whole gives a good sense of the vastly different educational experiences of children around the world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)