Be My Neighbor [Paperback]

Complete with a foreword and words of wisdom by Fred Rogers, readers will celebrate diversity as they travel around the world to learn what it means to be a good neighbor in communities across the globe. Around the world, children live in communities with others, sharing homes, resources, and experiences with their neighbors. Through vibrant photographs and simple text, readers will see neighborhoods from Vietnam to the United States, Austria to Kenya and everywhere in between and learn what it means to be part of a community. This celebration of culture, tradition, and friendship will have readers asking “won’t you be my neighbor?”A visually enticing tribute to diversity and the number of bonds that unite us in a common humanity. This works like a primer in cultural geography, introducing young readers to locales as disparate as Togo and Brunei. Ajmera and Ivanko have gathered crisp, evocative photographs, with up to a dozen scattered across the two-page spreads, illustrating architecture and food, rituals and ceremonies, play and work. A note of the locale accompanies each of the photographs and a handy, colorfully appealing map helps readers situate where on the globe these shots were taken. The text--though well-intended and emphasizing both the cradling pleasures and the distinctiveness of each community--couldn't be flatter if it were Kansas: Schools are important because they help you learn and become more helpful to your community. But what this lacks in bounce, it makes up for in an unequivocal broadside against xenophobia.
—Kirkus Reviews

In an opening-page photograph, the late Fred Rogers sits in front of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe castle surrounded by an ethnically diverse group of children. His introductory Words of Wisdom --vintage Mister Rogers--talk about how a neighbor can live close by or far away, but as different as we are from one anolÓé