SCHOOL'S IN SESSION

Differences and similarities among schools around the world.

Readers will glean intriguing facts about how students get to school and learn, study, play, and even eat lunch in schools in America and various global locations in this briskly paced early reader in three chapters. First up is the chapter describing how pupils travel. Some go by buses or subways, as in New York City; other transport options include snowmobile (Mackinac Island, Michigan), cable car (Caracas, Venezuela), or zipline (Colombia). Some kids walk miles (Nigeria), while motorcycle rickshaws transport pupils in some areas of Thailand. Readers will learn that in some towns in India, students receive instruction on train platforms or in buses and that some students learn on riverboats in flood-prone regions of Bangladesh. Young readers will be especially interested in the “Schoolwork and Play” chapter, which provides information about the length of school days, what school lunches are like, and how much homework is assigned. Readers won’t envy some South Korean high schoolers, who attend class for more than 14 hours daily, but they might wish they lived in Finland, where school days last five hours and students receive 75 minutes of daily recess and less than three hours of homework each week, or in France, where pupils get two-hour daily lunch breaks, with meals consisting of mouthwatering, multicourse cuisine. These interesting tidbits and more are delivered via short sentences written in a breezy, conversational tone and will help young readers understand that they’re connected to kids everywhere. Colorful, lively illustrations feature children and adults with a broad range of skin tones. A glossary opens the book, which includes a world map.

A nice entree to the school year.