This was a cute book that introduces children to many different languages. The illustrations are adorable and the back of the book contains a few bits of information about each of the countries. A fun resource for the classroom library!

DISAPPOINTING

There is one thing that made me sad and more to that many points, which made me, offended as well.

Picture books are mainly designed to attract the children and are meant to make them more aware about things in the easiest way so that they can learn while having fun. But facts were dwindled and wrong as well.

Firstly, Starting with sad part is that even after including all the countries around 'Her', author decided to opt-out "India". Arabia was there, and Russia & China but no India, such an antagonism for us.

Secondly, facts were not mentioned properly.
-China titled to keep authority on Mt. Everest; however, it is Nepal having more part of it; but to unfair display of biased knowledge, no description or entitlement of this country.
-'Mercie' is specifically used in writing in older Guernsey, not france, where it is written as ' Merci'.
-In Arabia all children stop to read from Quran (wrongly mentioned in book as Kuran), irrespective of their religion and teaching on Arabic language. What a miss and mindful input on abrahmic religions' push marketing.
-In Greece, Monuments mentioned to be used in pronouns as 'they', which in all aspects of righteous grammar must be "it". 'They' used for living things be it in past or future or present, but 'it' used for still-not-living things or for animals in case of animals.
-I also do not fully agreed on the tour's visit schedule. Some places are not meant to be how those had been visited one after another. Based on the geographical positions placed, scheduled should be different, to make better understanding of countries, with and about their neighbouring ones as well, for children to learn.

If as an author, someone is writing something for children, they have to be very much sincere and concerned about what and how they are telling them anything to learn.

For wrong facts, it is 2.0 for me, 1* too for Illustrations by Mike Blanc & Kristin Blackwood & 1* for initial translations on how to greet someone & to take depart from, in all mentioned 18 countries.

Thanks to NetGalley, my kids and I had the opportunity to read Around the World in 18 Ways by Vanita Oelschalger; Kristin Blackwood
While we enjoyed the illustrations and the educational material in this book, I think having the travel journal entries included with each country would have made the book more engaging and interesting throughout. You would be able to experience the country’s cultures and customs, and then also learn the phrases necessary to interact with the people that live there.
The 4 phrases for each country became a bit boring for the boys as we got further into the book. We ended up skipping quickly through the rest of the countries to get to the travel journal which told a snippet about each location and was more fun to read.
Mom – 3.5 stars for the concept and illustrations
Twins – 3 Stars

#AroundtheWorldin18Ways #NetGalley

How cute was this book? 5 ⭐️S! I loved saying the different languages. The added bonus at the end about their travel journey was so informative. The book just made me smile. Thank you for the ARC NetGalley.

Very engaging, colorful and informative. Perfecr way to introduce the world to young readers o4 a good reminder just before travelling. I found the country options okay and happily surprised that the Philippines were included. In the country descriptions however, the game is called Tumbang Preso, not Pres. I hope it can still be corrected.

Around the World in 18 Ways was not only educational, but also fun to read! This book provided so much unique information about each country featured. As readers, we learned a lot about international travel and customs that each country takes pride in. The travel guide in the back of the book was a great addition to the vocabulary lesson. The illustrations in this book were fantastic and really showcased the colors and visuals you can expect to see in each location.

Although I would have enjoyed a few more languages, this book has a really good, simplistic concept with fantastic illustrations, colours and the layout is great. As an Australian, I did have to laugh at that page. It's Aussie slang lol.

Around the World in 18 Ways features translations of "Hello, goodbye, thank you, and please" in numerous languages. The illustrations feature possible scenes from each country and were bright.

Around the World in 18 Ways includes a few words (hello, goodbye, please, and thank you) in 18 different languages! I love learning new languages so this was very entertaining for me. At the end of the book, there is also a travel journal which explained the author’s journey. This was a quick, easy read with really nice illustrations. Thank you to Vanita Books for providing me with a free e-copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I was disappointed to see there were only four expressions listed for each of the languages.

"Thank you" in French is spelled 'merci', not 'mercie' as written so I wonder how accurate other languages may be.

Pros: I love books for children about places around the world. I think learning about other people and cultures is so important and that if we cannot travel in person, we can travel by book. I appreciate that this book starts by saying that one of the most important things to pack when going to a new country is some of the words that country uses--what a wonderful example of showing respect. My favorite part of this book was the illustrations--they are so bright and cheerful. I also loved the travel journal at the end of the book--it was a fun surprise of extra information about the different countries visited in this book.

Cons: None that I can think of.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vanita Books for the opportunity to read this book.

This is an adorable book to read aloud to the kids in your life! My children and I have enjoyed the illustrations and the story.

This book is definitely aimed at the younger set (4-8ish) but as an adult I learned a lot! The book has vibrant, easy to read pages. Even my older children really liked learning and saying out loud all the ways to say Please/thank you and hello/goodbye. In the back of the book there is more great information about the places you’ve just been in the “travel journal”. I would definitely buy this for my elementary homeschool coop!

This book has colorful bright illustrations and lets the reader know how to say Hello, please, thank you and goodbye in eighteen languages. At the very end there is a little tidbit of information about each of countries. As a traveler those are phrases I do like to learn and use when visiting countries.

There are some downsides to the book for me. First the illustrations are inconsistant. Some portray children in stereotypical clothing like leiderhosen or grass skirts while others are in regular kids clothing. Also if you're going to spotlight a country then use something recognizable. In France it shows the Eiffel tower but in Estonia is looks like the children are on a ferris wheel. Also the focus in on language, but Australia speaks English not Australian. It would be like me being depicted as saying Howdy and calling it a language because I'm from the western USA. It doesn't fit.

While I like the idea for the book it isn't probably one I would choose for myself or my school library. I do appreciate the authors are donating their proceeds to charity. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a temporary ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the artwork in this photo and I enjoyed the travel around the world. I was very disappointed with the way that the book was laid out and the lack of information. While the words in different languages is very interesting, and the facts in the back were interesting, I felt as though it was a bit disjointed and that the book could be so much more. I was really hoping that the 18 ways would also provide different activities or more facts about each place that we travelled in the world. This book would be okay to read to a young child but honestly, I don't imagine it would really capture their attention all that well, and it would be boring to read more than a couple of times.

While the idea is good, not all the information in the book is 100% accurate. For example, Mount Everest is not in China alone, it's in Nepal too. I think adding more Middle Eastern, Asian and African languages to the book would have been good too. 18 is a weird number to choose, so why not add more diversity than just Europe plus a few?

Around the world in 18 ways is a book about the beauty of traveling, learning a new language and culture. The book introduces phrases from World languages such as Mexican, Russian, Italian, and many more. A must-read to spark the interest of travel in kids. The illustrations are colorful and give a glimpse of the beauty of different cultures.

As someone who is homeschooling and teaching a course on culture, I can't say how much I loved this book!

Just 4 simple words for each country was great. The phonetic sounds were very helpful in reinforcing how the word is said. We can look up the pronunciation online but it's often hard to remember it. So it was nice to be have a prompt when reviewing with the child!

I like the pictures for each country and especially the words in the written language of the country. Helps show how we are all different but the same.

I thought it was helpful to start out with European Germanic based languages which are very similar to English to help build success right from the start.

Fabulous for homeschool, school libraries and children who travel.

I received an ARC from Netgalley and Vanita Books to help prepare my honest review.

This is such a cute, handy book. It features how to say common phrases and shows children in their countries traditional attire. The book is colorful and the pictures are beautiful. A good way to get children interested in other languages and learning more about other places.

This book shares how to say the most important words for any traveler (hello, please, thank you, goodbye) in 18 different languages in specific countries. This takes up the bulk of the book, but following the language guide is a travel journal in which the narrator visits each of these countries in turn, noting a single short entry for each.

I thought it was a cute approach to introduce a child to other countries, cultures and languages, and the illustrations are really vibrant.