Birthdays Around the World

Birthdays Around the World
Written by: Mary D. Lankford
Illustrated by: Karen Dugan
Published by Harper Collins Publishers in Hong Kong in 2002
Genre: Informational Text (Multicultural Work)
Ages: grades 3-5

Summary: This book takes readers around the world to seven foreign countries. It shows them many of the traditional birthday celebrations in countries such as Finland, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, The Philippines, and Sweden. This book not only tells of foods, games, and traditions people in these countries take part in on their birthdays, but also gives readers other interesting facts about birthdays. The back of the of the book has a page about birthday superstitions, birthday flowers, gemstones, and character traits, and also gives ideas about how to have an "around the world" birthday party.

Response: I learned many things from this book. First of all, Mary D. Lankford tells us that "Happy Birthday to You" was written by two women, Mildred J. and Patty Hill, about 100 years ago! I also learned that in The Netherlands children play a game called Koekhappen in which "children are blindfolded and attempt to eat soft cookies from a string," (page 16) which to me sounds a little cruel. A popular game in New Zealand is Pass the Parcel. In this game music is played and a package is passed around. When the music stops, whoever is holding it will unwrap a layer and find a small gift. This continues until the final gift is unwrapped. There was so much great information in this book, that a could not possibly mention all of the interesting facts I learned!

One of the good ideas I got for a birthday party was the "around the world birthday party" idea in the back of the book. The author suggests that the invitations be part of the theme and one theme they suggest is the ocean. Therefore, they suggest that the reader draw a fish pattern and trace it twice, then cut it out and decorate it with gills, etc., then glue only the edges of the fish together so that the fish is mostly hollow still. the next thing one should do is draw several smaller fish in different colors and put the location on one, the time one another, the date on one, and the event title on yet another. The invitation will be given to the invitees with the smaller fish in the larger fish's mouth!

The illustrations in this work were very good. Karen Dugan uses vibrant colors and makes her characters look as though they were real people just photographed. She uses lines to create depth in her illustrations and draws remarkable trees, especially in the Finland illustration. She does not forget to pay careful attention to her backgrounds so they look like settings within the country represented. Also, she takes great care in ensuring that the majority of the girls are wearing hair barrettes, necklaces, earrings or some form of accessory. No detail is too small for her!

Teacher Connections: This book would be wonderful to do a multicultural study with. A teacher could read this book to her class and have them get into seven groups and then choose which of these countries the group wanted to do a research project about.

A teacher could also read one page of this book to her class each day or week and then devote the rest of the day or week, respectively to a study of that particular country.

Or, one could combine these two ideas and have the students choose from these seven countries before knowing about the birthday celebrations and then the students could present on that country and the teacher could read to the class about that nation's particular birthday celebrations.

(Image retrieved from http://thesavvytraveller.com/agraphics/family_travel/for_kids/insights/people/celebrations/birthdays_around_the_world_125h.jpgon 4 April 2008)