Our Village in the Sky by Janeen Brian, ill. Anne Spudvilas, ISBN 9781743318140, Allen and Unwin
REVIEWED BY JOSEPH, 10, WA
A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.
This is a book about kids living in a village in the Himalayan mountains. Our Village in the Sky is a book of poems and each poem talks about what the kids do during the day. They have to do chores like take care of the animals, wash clothes and scrub dishes, carry water from a water pipe, and more.
I found it interesting because I didn’t know much about this sort of life and it’s very different from the lives of Australian kids. The kids in this book don’t have the technology that we have, they spend their days doing chores so their families can live, and they make their own fun outdoors. My favourite pages are the ones about the children washing the dishes in summer and winter. But my favourite poem (as a poem) is the one about playing knucklebones.
The illustrations are realistic, serious pictures and they help you to see what the kids in the village are like. It helps you to understand the emotions in the poems.
The book also has a QR code — it takes you to a website with audio. This is especially good for young kids who can look at the pictures and listen to the poems be read to them.
This book is good for kids aged 6 to 12. I would recommend this book especially for grades 3 and 4 in their classrooms because it teaches you about life in another country while enjoying a good read at the same time. I give it 7.75/10 — it’s not the sort of book I would normally pick up but I was glad that I did read it.
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Joseph is one of our regular book reviewers. His most recent review (if you don’t count this one) was of Bully on the Bus. If YOU would like to send us a book review, check out our submission guidelines. Happy reading!
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