WHERE TO?

Neighborhoods are busy, exciting places to explore.

This cheery, very colorful Czech import opens with eight racially diverse friends introducing themselves. These kids invite readers to learn more important locations in a typical community. Charles, the first friend, wants to know where to go to send a large package. Beneath, a numbered, labeled diagram-cum-map features four neighborhood locales—the library, the vet’s, the post office, and the hairdresser’s—from which readers must select the right answer. The double-page spread that follows contains detailed information, some of it historical, about the correct response: the post office. The book proceeds in a similar manner, with each friend in turn posing a “where to?” query. Along the way, readers get in-depth looks at the photo studio, the police station, and the museum. Featuring vivid, busy illustrations, this spirited book is a fun exercise in problem-solving, map reading, and becoming familiar with one’s neighborhood. Children will discover what happens in each location and what they can do when they get there. Background characters, diverse in age and race, converse in speech balloons. The final location—the observatory—also includes instructions for making a simple telescope.

Readers will have lots of fun as they tour and learn new things about their communities.