Review: If You Were Me (Away We Go Media)

Do you have a child wanting to know the basics about another country?   A child who wants to understand some of culture in the world around him?  Well Away we go Media has books that will help you.    For this review we received the paper back books from Carole P. Roman called "If you were me and lived in (France, Noway, Mexico or South Korea).  A Child's Introduction to cultures around the world".

Product Information

Vendor: Carole P. Roman with Away We Go Media
Product Received: Four books
If You Were Me and Lived in...Mexico
If You Were Me and Lived in...South Korea
If You Were Me and Lived in...France
If You Were Me and Lived in...Norway (This one is a new release and doesn't have a web page yet.)
Price:
Mexico, South Korea and France can be purchased on Amazon for  $.99 each for Kindle and for $8.99 each (Paperback).   Norway is the newest and is $1.99 (Kindle) or $10.79 (Paperback).    You can also purchase them through Barnes and Noble for $9.99 each with the exception of Norway which can be purchased for $8.63.
Age Range: for up to age 10.

Written by Carole P. Roman from the website we read: She has just finished the first of six books in a groundbreaking new nonfiction series about culture around the world. "If You Were Me and Lived in..." combines her teaching past with her love of exploration and interest in the world around us.

I used these with my son, age 8.   We read each of them twice, once at night and then once during the day.    We also shared two of them with friends.    These are simple books meant to introduce children to the basics of other cultures.  

Each book follows this formula: map of country with capital city starred, where it is located in the world, a bit about the capital city, common names of children, what you would call your parents, what the money is called, tourist attraction, typical food, favourite game/sport, major holiday, and what school would be called.

My son was most interested in this one from France.   Every summer we get an international student in from France.  They stay for three weeks and we learn more about France, they learn more about Canada and it is a good experience.   This book gave him a bit more of a taste from France.

After reading three of them my son was NOT interested in reading the last - telling me "MOM.. they are all the same, I don't want to read this one too!" I encouraged him to read it with me.   To our surprise he liked it best!   Go figure.  All the books are written in the same style, but for some reason he liked the one about Norway.  He even said "this is the best one Mom."   He had no problems with me choosing to read it randomly later on either.  :)   Good to have no complaints.

I won't tell you that these are books your child will beg you to read over and over again.  But I will tell you that these books WILL give your child(ren) an excellent introduction to different cultures from around the world.   My son now has a better set of questions he can ask our next international student.   If I were buying them, I would read them as a start off to studies on a country, just to get the brain juices flowing.  I would not read them one after the other, they are too similar and that causes the information to not be as easily remembered as being from one country or another. 

Do you want to know what other reviewers have to say about these books?   If so,follow this link or click on the banner below. :)