Give Your Child the World by Jamie C. Martin can easily be described as a uniquely designed literature tour of the earth for children. This treasure houses over 600, carefully curated book recommendations for families with children ages 4 to 12. The suggestions offer your family the chance to connect with countries and cultures all over the globe. This book is available from various retailers for $10-$15.

Give Your Child the World begins with a trip down memory lane as Jamie discusses her childhood desires to travel, family trips, and even details about adopting three children with her husband. Since their children are from different parts of the world, she wanted to ensure they learned about various places around the world. Jamie also shares her experiences using home decor, maps, globes, Google Earth, family dinners, current events and much more to share the world with her children. These experiences paired with literature encouraged her to pen this book of suggestions for others to enjoy. 

The next section of the book features the book recommendations and details on how they were chosen. These recommendations are separated by age groups of 6-8, 8-10, and 10-12 years old. The lists include both picture and chapter books with the supervised read aloud to independent reading levels in mind. Special notes about sensitive topics, cultural or religious beliefs, and other noteworthy mentions are also included. The remaining chapters of the book hold the topical lists for your young readers. Lists for multicultural books, Africa, Europe, Asia, Middle East, North America, Latin America, Australia, Oceania, and the Polar Regions are provided. Each chapter begins with a list of countries and regions covered. An introduction describing Jamie's experience or memories with the area is also included. 

The book ends with an awesome motivational poem for each reader. The sincere words encourage continued exploration and education through reading. She even notes various levels and the growth of going from preschool to independent reading levels. Heartfelt acknowledgments, notes, and contact information for Jamie and the Love146 charity Mr. Martin works for are also provided. Detailed title, historical, country/region, author indexes are available for assistance in searching for specific books.

Overall, I found this book to be a helpful tool for lesson planning and creating leisure reading lists. I used Jamie's suggestions to find books for our monthly cultural or country studies. I also plan to use it to create reading baskets for things like Hispanic Heritage Month and Black History Month. I found her notes to be accurate and useful when deciding the approach I wanted to take on certain topics. Her notes also make parents aware when the books mention sensitive issues and events as well as religious beliefs. For example, when we studied Australia I read Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker to my five and four-year-old children. Thanks to Jamie's notes, I was prepared to answer their questions and offer solutions about rainforest destruction. Based on the details in this book, when my oldest son read The Igloo, by Charlotte and David Yue, I made sure to prepare information about Inuit beliefs in advance so we could discuss them. 

As a homeschool mom, it is my desire to cultivate a lifelong love of learning in our household. By simply opening a book we can visit any part of the world and learn about their culture, history, and other contributions. The tips and reading recommendations within this book promote a guided global perspective that includes faith and compassion. Due to the wealth of information shared within Give Your Child the World, I believe this book would be a grand addition to any home library.

-Product review by Ta'Neisha Kemp, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, November 2019