A Year Full of Celebrations and Festivals makes learning fun

A Year Full of Celebrations and Festivals is the kind of book I would’ve loved as a child. Growing up in the United States I knew about all of our festivals and holidays, but what really intrigued me were the international ones that my classmates or neighbors celebrated. I wanted to try the foods that they ate on those days and had umpteen questions about why they did or believed certain things. When I got older those questions only got more involved as I worked at EPCOT and actually became friends with people from all over the world. A Year Full of Celebrations and Festivals by Christopher Corr and Claire Grace is a reference book for grades three and up that takes a look at over 90 celebrations from around the world. It is a reference book, so it’s encyclopedic in nature. However, it’s also loaded with illustrations and brightly colored pages that entice young readers to keep turning the pages.

Those age readers will also appreciate the fact that the book presents the holidays in a manner that they probably aren’t used to. There is a sense of randomness that is set within a box that’s easy for them to conceptualize. Initially, the book has four seasons, with just over a dozen celebrations in each. However, in each season there are a couple of pages devoted to themes, such as food festivals, fire festivals, and more. Those themed pages have a couple of different celebrations on each page, which has shorter text than the ones that feature one holiday on a specific page.

Adding to the variety is that the fact that a vast majority of the celebrations won’t be known by your young reader. Heck, I’m a relatively well-traveled, not-so-young reader, and I didn’t know about half of the festivals. Sure, in their native lands they might not be major festivals that merit their own calendar, but they’re fascinating and really made me, and other young readers, want to know more.

Walpurgis Night is a great one from northern Europe. To my American eyes, it has the hallmarks of Halloween, but it takes place on April 30. In Finland, this same day is called Vappu and people wear scary masks and run through the streets shouting. I find that very curious and fascinating, it also makes me wonder how Halloween is presented elsewhere. It’s a night where pop-culture and monster costumes mix together and young children ask for candy; that would be how it’s sold overseas in my mind’s eye.

The art in the book is very colorful, playful and will engage any person who happens to casually look in it. Because most of the festivals are provided with a page of text and a large page of illustrations for each one it also baits more advanced readers to learn more. A Year Full of Celebrations and Festivals is a resource book, but it’s also enjoyable, because who said learning things had to be a chore?

A Year Full of Celebrations and Festivals is by Christopher Corr and Claire Grace and from Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, an imprint of Quarto Knows.

There are affiliate links in this post.