Walk This World

I ordered this book for my granddaughters to read, and the moment I took it out of the box, I knew I had made a good choice. The cover is colorful and filled with drawings of people, animals, and places all over the world. It’s a pretty book with an inviting format that will surely appeal to children in middle childhood.The writer begins his walk in NYC, and right away I noticed the ubiquitous yellow taxi that’s associated with the Big Apple. There is a big hotel, a bridge (Brooklyn?), and the last few letters of a museum (GENHEIM). Right away I noticed the flaps that hid other scenes, and I knew that kids would love this.From New York, the traveler goes to France where he says, “Merci,” and before the day ends, he hears gondoliers greeting him with,”Ciao!" in Italy. Traveling on, he hears samba drums and bhangra beats, sees brilliant saris and relaxed beach bums, and experiences drizzly streets in England and neon signs in Japan. While I was able to recognize the scenes because of travel and reading, a young child might need a little help in figuring out some countries, like where the "onion domes and cozy homes" are.Sometimes children (adults too!) think their little corner of the world is “the world,” but this book tells a different tale. While the book demonstrates that although we all have different languages and different ways to live and work and play, we are a lot more similar than dissimilar.

I was attracted to the concept of visiting places around the world and opening flaps to look behind the scenes. There's a lot of interesting detail, especially for older children (the drawing is a bit too abstract for under 8 or 9). Some of the flaps were wonderful, ie: what's inside the carriage, hidden by the balcony rail, behind the door or window. But many were confusing and my best guess is that they represented the same location at a different time- a man carrying a violin case and behind the flap playing it or an ice cream cart with kids waiting to buy and behind the flap the same scene with the addition of the ice cream seller and her scoop. So OK, but not quite what I had hoped for.

I bought this book just from the cover image after Amazon suggested it to me. I love the colorful, images of our world in this book. I gave it to my nephew for his birthday. Everyone else seemed to agree that the illustration is great. I will say, theres not much of a story line. I see it as more of a visual than literary book. But there are about a million hidden windows for kids to find, which I always liked as a kid, so I'm sure my nephew will enjoy it.

Absolutely lush picture book with enough going on in each scene to make new discoveries on each read. The chronology of the layout sort of impresses the reader with the shared experiences underlying regional differences, e.g., everyone goes to market, uses a form of transportation, goes to work, etc. Prompts lovely discussions about far off cities and seems a treat for the imagination.

Not well manufactured. The flaps are hard for my 2-year-old (and me!) to both spot and open. I ended up snipping the corners off the flaps with scissors to enable us to open them. Even then, we’ve both lost interest. There’s no real story to follow. Just brief, quasi-descriptions of the various cities visited. The illustrations are attractive, but don’t vary from city to city and page to page. Everything looks the same. And am I the only one who noticed that the one African locale featured isn’t even named? I feel like it may be a city in Kenya, but I also feel like the illustrator had a Colonialist’s view of African life. Not impressed. I should have sent it back. Regardless, based on the lack of story, difficult to use flaps, very small imagery, sameness of design from page to page, and stereotypes of all countries (but especially of Africa and India, where there’s a reference to a bride), this is not appropriate for a toddler.

Beautiful book and illustrations. Bought it for my son but found it to be one I would enjoy owning even without a child. Creative peek into lives in other places with the flaps. My 2 year old loves looking at the pages and we spend a lot of our time finding things and playing a form of "I spy". I think this is a book he will find enjoyment with for a long time.

It's a beautiful book and the scene on the flap changes once it's opened. So you are looking at a window then move the flap and see someone inside the window cooking, etc. Cute, clever and the pages and illustrations start a lot of great conversations about everything! There is so much to look at and talk about culturally, personally, historically etc. I highly recommend it.

This book is a winner! LOVE IT. Amazing colors, amazing style of illustration and great little poems about each place. Nice that its a board type book and has flaps you can open throughout. A great book to add to your travel/world collection. Great for adults to enjoy with their kiddos.

Really love this book. Full of entertaining illustrations and great way to discuss with your child how other people live their lives. Opening all the flaps holds their attention.

great book both for traveling adults and kids! .. who am I kidding. I don't even have kids and each page made me smile as I would open up the little windows to reveal the surprises underneath. great for any traveling enthusiast. a great book to add to your traveling book collection

a fun book for 2 to 21/2 year old- loves the little windows and the task of opening windows and doors on each page. great book.

This is a beautiful book with flaps on every page. I am giving it one star only because it is faulty. Some of the pages were not stuck straight and so when my son opened the flaps all he got was either nothing or a block colour. He was disappointed and prefers us to read other books instead. I can't return it because the return window closed. As I bought it as a gift for my son, there was no way of knowing about the fault beforehand. Overall, we were very disappointed.

Love the content of this book. However, the print quality was suffering. Lots of color transfers between pages.