School Life = La vida escolar

There are six books in the Comparing Countries series: Daily Life, Festivals and Celebrations, Games and Entertainment, Houses and Homes, School Life, and Towns and Villages. “Comparing Countries” is a dual-language English/Spanish series. Although Wikipedia ranks Spanish as the second most spoken language in the world, these books would be much more useful in Canadian school libraries if the books were in English/French. Schools that include a Spanish-speaking community may find this series useful in a dual language section of their library. Due to my lack of Spanish fluency, I cannot confirm the accuracy of the Spanish translation.

Each book begins with an invitation to “go around the world” to compare different aspects of life that students will be able to relate to easily. In School Life, students will compare how students in different countries get to school, uniforms, the school day, what schools look like, school equipment, exercise, lunch time, and fun at school.

One example from Turkey includes information about schools for refugees. Students in most Canadian schools will notice the discrepancy between equipment described here and equipment in their own school.

Lots of children have come from Syria to Turkey with their families as refugees. The schools for refugee children often have few supplies except pencils and paper.

Each double-page spread includes two columns of colour-coded text comparing two countries, one colour for English and a different colour for Spanish. The books all contain a dual-language table of contents, index, and glossary. Information in these books is stated in manageable and organized sections with examples from locations around the world. The text size is large and reader-friendly, and the information is enhanced by many colourful photos. The page layout is very attractive.

These books are not ‘must-haves’, but they are worth considering for your young researchers learning about communities at home and around the world, especially if you have an immigrant or local Spanish-speaking school community. If you don’t have a need for English/Spanish books, you may want to save your library shelf space for some English/French books, if you can find them.