Books in Holidays Around the World series

Thanksgiving is the original American holiday. When the Pilgrims sat down to give thanks for the hard-won bounty of their new world, they continued a Native American tradition that would become a focal point in the calendar of all generations of Americans to come. The author relates this holiday to the harvest festivals celebrated by thankful believers of many faiths all over the globe. The book's stunning pictures show the celebration in its historical and cultural aspects, and the back matter contains a delicious Thanksgiving recipe, a glossary, and a useful list of holiday references and resources. Dr. Elizabeth Pleck gives readers, parents, and teachers an historical and cultural background to this unique American tradition in her informative note.National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Hanukkah comes every year. Let’s light candles, give gifts, spin the dreidel, and celebrate! Holidays Around the World: Hanukkah gives young readers in prekindergarten to grade 1 an introduction to what the holiday means and how people celebrate this festive time.World holidays are an integral part of early elementary social studies curriculums. In this series, early readers will learn about foods, celebrations, and customs from a variety of cultures around the world. Each book features callouts that match glossary words to images, as well as comprehension questions for further learning.

Using beautiful, dynamic photographs and lively text, this book introduces young readers to the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, showing how Jewish people around the world celebrate them. This book also offers fascinating facts, a recipe, and a Common Core-aligned activities.National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

The most celebrated holiday in the Jewish year, Passover commemorates the Exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt to freedom over 3,500 years ago. This colorful book explores the many forms that this weeklong celebration takes worldwide. Deborah Heiligman's rich text details the long lavish meals called seders, at which Exodus is recalled in ritual, prayer, song, and story. The historical significance of the food at these Passover feasts is also explained, and delicious recipes encourage readers to experience the full flavors of this internationally observed holiday. Rabbi Shira Stern's informative note provides parents and teachers with a historical and cultural background of the celebration of Passover.

Meet marvelous princesses from around the world with this wonderful book. These fantastical princesses are just like real ones from the kingdoms of China, India, and Italy. Through these pages, we enter their magical worlds . . .Katell Goyer graduated with a degree in French literature before choosing to become a teacher. She has always wanted to make up and write stories since she was a child, first for herself, and later for her children.Misstigri is a painter, a graphic designer, and an illustrator. Using acrylic for her paintings, she creates truly original and colorful worlds.

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo continues National Geographic’s spectacular Holidays Around the World series with this joyous feast of Mexican culture—an annual event in Mexico and an increasingly popular holiday in America as well. Many mistakenly assume that the fifth of May is Mexico’s Independence Day. In fact, the date marks the anniversary of a famous 1862 battle in which the Mexicans defeated the French. Known as the Battle of Puebla, the victory marked a watershed in Mexican pride and unity that echoes down to the present day. With succinct text and dazzling photography, Celebrate Cinco de Mayo takes readers on a journey to discover the rich variety of celebrations across our country—from Texas to Minnesota to New York. This inviting book gives readers a flavor of the wide range of colorful holiday traditions: parades and pageants; races and rodeos; mariachi music and dancing; parties with piñatas and delicious Mexican foods. Children will learn how the largest Cinco de Mayo event in the world, the Fiesta Broadway, actually takes place in the United States, and attracts more than 600,000 revelers each year. Mexico is our closest neighbor and the birthplace of America’s largest immigrant community; a knowledge of Mexican culture and history is increasingly relevant to students across the United States.National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

In Celebrate Hanukkah Deborah Heiligman welcomes readers to a holiday celebrated by Jewish communities around the world. The vivid photography of National Geographic illustrates the joyous celebrations of Jewish people around the world—including Ghana, Uganda, India, Israel, Peru, the United States and Poland, as they light menorahs, spin dreidels, and make latkes. The richly informative back matter details many facts, such as the story of U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman, who brought a menorah and a dreidel on his Space Shuttle mission in 1993. Hoffman observed the traditional spinning of the dreidel, but wisely left the menorah unlit in the proximity of several thousand liters of rocket fuel! Also included are the author's sure-to-please latke recipe, Hanukkah blessings, and a Hanukkah song. A note from Rabbi Shira Stern, the book's consultant, sets the holiday in its global religious and cultural context.

Children have never had so many reasons to learn how Chinese people everywhere ring in the new and ring out the old. As China takes its new place on the global stage, understanding Chinese culture and values becomes ever more essential to our next generation.For two joyous weeks red is all around. The color represents luck and happiness. Children receive money wrapped in red paper, and friends and loved ones exchange poems written on red paper. The Chinese New Year is also an opportunity to remember ancestors, and to wish peace and happiness to friends and family. The holiday ends with the Festival of Lanterns, as many large communities stage the famous Dragon Dance. Fireworks, parades, lanterns, presents, and feasts: these are some of the joys experienced by all who observe Chinese New Year.Celebrate Chinese New Year is the latest, timely addition to National Geographic’s popular Holidays Around the World series. With 25 colorful images and a simple, educational text, the book is a lively invitation to revel in this child-friendly, national and international holiday. Carolyn Otto brings the historical and cultural aspects of the Chinese New Year into focus, and young readers experience the full flavor of an event celebrated by over a billion people in China, and countless others worldwide.

A waterside home is a home that lies next to, or floats on, a sea, a river, a lake, or a canal. This exciting new book looks at homes built beside, over, or on top of water in cities such as Venice and Hong Kong, and high in the Andes Mountains on Lake Titicaca. Detailed photography shows what these kinds of homes are made from and what they look like inside. Other interesting topics include working, going to school, and getting around on water, and how people living near water are affected by flooding, soil erosion, hurricanes, and water pollution. A world map identifies the cities and countries featured in the book.