How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz

This is a Caldecott Honor book by acclaimed children's author Uri Shulevitz. This particular picture book is autobiographical in nature. It's about a young boy (ostensibly Uri), who is forced to leave his home country due to war, and now lives as a refugee on a dirt floor in miserable circumstances.

One day his father comes home from the market without food--he didn't have enough to buy a loaf of bread, but he was able to buy a world map. Young Uri is furious at first.

But as days go by, he spends a lot of time staring at the map and daydreaming about visiting this place or that. He brings the map to life in his imagination and pictures himself off in deserts or jungles. In the end, of course, he realizes he's not so mad at his dad after all. It's hard to be hungry and miserable when you're daydreaming.

This is a wonderful book for children because it probably is a good first taste of this thing called "perspective." First, with the title…Some people learn geography in school, after having eaten a well-balanced breakfast. Others learn it as they flee or are displaced from country to country.

Then with the map vs. food…You could spend all your time thinking about the things you don't have, or you could make the best of a bad situation.

Not that I think people should trivialize issues of starvation. But hopefully this inspires kids to think of how others live or have been forced to live…How they might one day be forced to live…

~7/10~

I wish the end rhymed.