Wish: Wishing Traditions Around the World
This visually captivating book highlights wishing customs in countries around the world. Each double-page spread includes a bordered box carrying a rhymed couplet and a paragraph of text on practices such as wishing while throwing flowers and combs into the sea on New Year’s Day in Brazil or, in Ireland, wishing while blowing all the seeds off a dandelion puff in one breath. Additional facts about each tradition, as well as tiny lucky symbols hidden in the pictures, appear on the closing spread. Often infused with a sense of community and celebration, the colorful double-page illustrations are brimming with life and movement, while offering many intriguing details for children to absorb. The multimedia artwork includes drawn and painted elements as well as shapes cut from patterned papers and woven materials. The world maps painted on the endpapers feature tiny pictures representing a wishing custom in each country marked. An original presentation. Grades K-3. --Carolyn Phelan