Book picks similar to
Japan by Julie Murray
non-fiction
picture-books
asia
children-s
Hi, Koo!
Jon J. Muth - 2014
Caldecott Honoree and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author/artist Jon J Muth takes a fresh and exciting new look at the four seasons!Eating warm cookieson a cold dayis easywater catchesevery thrown stoneskip skip splashWith a featherlight touch and disarming charm, Jon J Muth--and his delightful little panda bear, Koo--challenge readers to stretch their minds and imaginations with twenty-six haikus about the four seasons.
Year of Impossible Goodbyes
Sook Nyul Choi - 1991
It is 1945, and courageous ten-year-old Sookan and her family must endure the cruelties of the Japanese military occupying Korea. Police captain Narita does his best to destroy everything of value to the family, but he cannot break their spirit. Sookan's father is with the resistance movement in Manchuria and her older brothers have been sent away to labor camps. Her mother is forced to supervise a sock factory and Sookan herself must wear a uniform and attend a Japanese school.Then the war ends. Out come the colorful Korean silks and bags of white rice. But Communist Russian troops have taken control of North Korea and once again the family is suppressed. Sookan and her family know their only hope for freedom lies in a dangerous escape to American-controlled South Korea.Here is the incredible story of one family's love for each other and their determination to risk everything to find freedom.
Country Road ABC: An Illustrated Journey Through America's Farmland
Arthur Geisert - 2010
It still features pigs, hay, and other familiar farm residents, but you'll see a very different kind of quicksand and traffic jam here...Along the bottom of each page is a continuous panorama that totals nearly forty feet of art. Country Road ABC is a unique and funny look at America's present-day farmland.
Malala's Magic Pencil
Malala Yousafzai - 2017
She would use it to make everyone happy, to erase the smell of garbage from her city, to sleep an extra hour in the morning. But as she grew older, Malala saw that there were more important things to wish for. She saw a world that needed fixing. And even if she never found a magic pencil, Malala realized that she could still work hard every day to make her wishes come true. This beautifully illustrated volume tells Malala's story for a younger audience and shows them the worldview that allowed Malala to hold on to hope even in the most difficult of times.
The Truth about Crocodiles: Seriously Funny Facts about Your Favorite Animals
Maxwell Eaton III - 2019
From writer/illustrator Maxwell Eaton III, The Truth About Crocodiles is the fifth installment in his hilarous series offering another lighthearted look filled with useful facts about crocodiles that will make you laugh so hard, you won't even realize you're learning something!
This Is the World: A Global Treasury
Miroslav Sasek - 2014
Sasek’s most popular children’s travel books. From London to Hong Kong, Sydney to San Francisco, readers will delight in this charming journey through the world’s great cities. With deft strokes of his paintbrush and a witty voice to match, master illustrator and storyteller M. Sasek captured the essence of the world’s major capitals and brought them to life for an entire generation of young readers. Now, more than fifty years later, those same readers are passing these stories down to their children and their children’s children, and Sasek’s This is series has officially reached iconic status. Collected here for the first time in one affordable volume are some of Sasek’s most beloved adventures. From Notre Dame in Paris to a trolley car in the hills of San Francisco, with stops for sausages in Munich and a yacht race in Sydney, this book takes children and adults alike on a whirlwind trip to some of the world’s greatest destinations. An inspirational travelogue that introduces readers to the art, architecture, music, food, and traditions of multiple cities and countries, This is the World is the perfect book for international commuters and would-be travelers of all ages. This anthology includes excerpts from: This is New York, This is Paris, This is Greece, This is London, This is Australia, This is Texas, This is Munich, This is Rome, This is Britain, This is Hong Kong, This is Israel, This is San Francisco, This is Edinburgh, This is Venice, This is Washington D.C., and This is Ireland.
Bad Ground: Inside the Beaconsfield Mine Rescue
Tony Wright - 2007
The blast and rock fall which occurred one kilometre underground on Anzac Day, 25 April 2006, killed their fellow worker, Larry Knight, leaving their shift manager certain they were dead. Tony Wright's enthralling, often spine-chilling narrative begins with a masterfully rendered portrait of the small Tasmanian mining township where the drama unfolded, a township that revealed its deepest secrets to him. Full of portent, Bad Ground reads like a psychological thriller as it follows the many intriguing and moving developments surrounding its central characters and their families, above ground and deep below. Russell and Webb, who were wary colleagues before becoming trapped in a cramped and crushed cage, share explicit details of their gruelling 14-day ordeal. They give an uncensored account of the darkest first five days during which little hope was held finding them, dead or alive, and the profoundly changed world they re-joined when rescued via the tunnel that served as their lifeline for nine agonisingly slow days. Bad Ground sets a new standard for this genre. Beautifully crafted, complex and, in parts, explosive, in the finest storytelling tradition, Tony Wright has written a compelling yarn that will stay with you long after the event itself has been forgotten.
The Top of the World: Climbing Mount Everest
Steve Jenkins - 1999
Take a trip to the highest peak in the whole world! Travel along this one-of-a-kind adventure and learn what it takes to successfully reach the top of this daring mountain. From sidebars filled with fascinating facts like why climbers need oxygen and how to protect against avalanches and frostbite to a list of all of the essentials that a climber needs on their thrilling journey, this informative text has it all. With riveting cut-paper collage illustrations, Steve Jenkins captures the majesty of one of the most extreme physical challenges and gives readers a bird’s-eye view of what it’s like to stand on top of the world.
Kuan Yin: The Princess Who Became the Goddess of Compassion
Maya van der Meer - 2021
She likes to spend her time quietly meditating with the creatures of the forest or having adventures with dragons and tigers. Miao Shan’s heart is so full of love that her dream is to spread happiness throughout the land and help people endlessly. But her father has other plans for her—he intends to have her married and remain in the palace. With the help of her little sister Ling, Miao Shan escapes and begins her journey to discover the true meaning of compassion.During their adventure, Ling and Miao Shan are eventually separated. Ling must overcome doubts, fears, and loneliness in order to realize what her sister had told her all along—that love is the greatest power in the world. After the sisters’ reunion, Miao Shan realizes her true calling as Kuan Yin, the goddess of compassion. A princess-adventure story like none other, this ancient Chinese tale of the world’s most beloved Buddhist hero is a story of sisterhood, strength, and following your own path.
Osnat and Her Dove: The True Story of the World's First Female Rabbi
Sigal Samuel - 2021
But very few believed that girls should learn to read.Yet Osnat's father was a great scholar whose house was filled with books. And she convinced him to teach her. Then she in turn grew up to teach others, becoming a wise scholar in her own right, the world's first female rabbi!Some say Osnat performed miracles – like healing a dove who had been shot by a hunter! Or saving a congregation from fire!But perhaps her greatest feat was to be a light of inspiration for other girls and boys; to show that any person who can learn might find a path that none have walked before.
Ruby's Wish
Shirin Yim Bridges - 2002
Instead of aspiring to get married, Ruby is determined to attend university when she grows up, just like the boys in her family. Based upon the inspirational story of the author's grandmother and accompanied by richly detailed illustrations, Ruby's Wish is an engaging portrait of a young girl who strives for more and a family who rewards her hard work and courage.
A Brief History of the Samurai: The Way of Japan's Elite Warriors
Jonathan Clements - 2010
The samurai emerged as a warrior caste in medieval Japan and would have a powerful influence on the history and culture of the country for the next 500 years.
What the World Eats
Faith D'Aluisio - 2008
But in every corner of the world this age-old custom is rapidly changing. From increased trade between countries to the expansion of global food corporations like Kraft and Nestlé, current events are having a tremendous impact on our eating habits. Chances are your supermarket is stocking a variety of international foods, and American fast food chains like McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken are popping up all over the planet. For the first time in history, more people are overfed than underfed. And while some people still have barely enough to eat, others overeat to the point of illness. To find out how mealtime is changing in real homes, authors Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio visited families around the world to observe and photograph what they eat during the course of one week. They joined parents while they shopped at mega grocery stores and outdoor markets, and participated in a feast where a single goat was shared among many families. They watched moms making dinner in kitchens and over cooking fires, and they sat down to eat with twenty-five families in twenty-one countries--if you’re keeping track, that’s about 525 meals! The foods dished up ranged from hunted seal and spit-roasted guinea pig to U.N.-rationed grains and gallons of Coca-Cola. As Peter and Faith ate and talked with families, they learned firsthand about food consumption around the world and its corresponding causes and effects. The resulting family portraits offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural similarities and differences served on dinner plates around the globe.
The Other Face of the Moon
Claude Lévi-Strauss - 2011
The essays, lectures, and interviews of this volume, written between 1979 and 2001, are the product of these journeys. They investigate an astonishing range of subjects among them Japan s founding myths, Noh and Kabuki theater, the distinctiveness of the Japanese musical scale, the artisanship of Jomon pottery, and the relationship between Japanese graphic arts and cuisine. For Levi-Strauss, Japan occupied a unique place among world cultures. Molded in the ancient past by Chinese influences, it had more recently incorporated much from Europe and the United States. But the substance of these borrowings was so carefully assimilated that Japanese culture never lost its specificity. As though viewed from the hidden side of the moon, Asia, Europe, and America all find, in Japan, images of themselves profoundly transformed.As in Levi-Strauss s classic ethnography "Tristes Tropiques, " this new English translation presents the voice of one of France s most public intellectuals at its most personal.
All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a Little Shovel
Dan Yaccarino - 2011
It’s a story that will have kids asking their parents and grandparents: Where did we come from? How did our family make the journey all the way to America? “A shovel is just a shovel, but in Dan Yaccarino’s hands it becomes a way to dig deep into the past and honor all those who helped make us who we are.” —Eric Rohmann, winner of the Caldecott Medal for My Friend Rabbit “All the Way to America is a charmer. Yaccarino’s heartwarming story rings clearly with truth, good cheer, and love.” —Tomie dePaola, winner of a Caldecott Honor Award for Strega NonaFrom the Hardcover edition.