I was sent a lovely multicultural, personalized book for kids to review, and had no idea how much I would love it! “My Very Own World Adventure,” written by Maia Haag, is the most unique book I’ve seen for kids! The personalized story invites your child (by name) on a magic carpet ride to meet children from around the world who give you a special gift from their country.
Using each letter of their names (in our case my son Ricky), the book takes you on a world tour of countries whose first letters spell out your child’s name. For example, Ricky‘s book began by meeting kids from Russia, Italy, Cuba, Kenya, and Yunnan (China). Here was the page for “R:”
Each child bears a gift from their country for your child, whom they call by name. The concept is great, but when I saw who the illustrators are, it blew my mind. The book designers spent over 5 years selecting 63 artists from around the world to paint a child from each of their countries!
Each letter of the alphabet has several options; for example “E” could be a woven blanket from Ecuador, baklava from Egypt, a carved wooden horse from Estonia, or special yellow daisies from Ethiopia they use during Meskel:
I love how the kids dabble in geography and cultures in the story, with its incredible illustrations that include adorable kids from around the world in their traditional dress, in front of typical architecture or landforms.
In our adventure story, we “visited” the following countries, which are included in the back of the book:
What I love about this book is that it is unlike anything I’ve seen before and would make a perfect gift for someone who is interested in teaching their kids about the world- and there would be no other book like it! If you’d like a virtual tour of this personalized book for kids, on-line you can read the story made for “Isabella Roberts” to see how the story incorporates each letter of her name.
I love the idea of this book! How unique, personal and educational!
I want to have copies made for my granddaughters.
Wow, that’s very cool!
What a great book! Wish my kids were young enough to appreciate it 🙂 Luckily I have nieces and nephews this will be perfect for! Thanks for sharing.
We have a few of the I See Me books and they are favorites here but this is a new one!! I’m so excited to read about it here.
What beautiful illustrations!
They really are gorgeous, and each one is unique. THey hired artists from within the specific country to come up with the concept and draw a child from their country. In the back of the book you get to “meet” the artists- so, so cool!
I love this! The illustrations really do seem beautiful. And I like the concept of kids sharing a gift from their country. Thanks so much for the heads up!