Australia (Country Explorers)

Award-winning author Sean McCollum has written more than 30 nonfiction books and hundreds of articles for children and teens. Currently living in the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, he has sailed on ships big and small, and always checks where the lifeboats are stowed.

Grade 1-4-Two titles by the same author explore the culture and geography of Australia. Both books contain essentially the same information and exactly the same photographs and illustrations. Only the vocabulary, amount of text, and details vary so that each volume is suited to a different range of readers. Each title provides one or two pages of information on climate, native animals, aboriginal people and recent immigrants, regional vocabulary, entertainment, and famous Australians. The "Globe-trotter's Club" book, which will appeal to the slightly older age range, uses symbols to distinguish information dealing with the geography, people, or culture. "A Ticket to" has some confusing elements; children are asked to locate the Pacific Ocean on a map that fills the left-hand page, but the label for the ocean is on the right. Although this offering is for younger readers, the books suggested in the chapter on Australian writers are the same in both titles. Both volumes refer to the "koala bear," but while the "Globe-trotter's Club" proceeds to explain that this marsupial is not a bear, the other title does not. This is a novel approach for getting more mileage out of the author's effort, but few libraries will want or need both versions. Purchase only where needed to update collections.
Jeanette Larson, Texas State Library, Austin
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