Thank You, World by Alice McGinty; Illustrations by Wendy Anderson Halperin

*Nonfiction picture book, preschool through second graders
*Being thankful is the main topic.
*Rating: Alice McGinty, who is a lovely person that I got to meet when I lived in the Champaign, IL area, has written beautiful text, and Wendy Halperin has provided unbelievable illustrations. This is one beautiful book!

Short, short summary: Thank you, World is another book you can use around Thanksgiving, as it focuses on things in a child’s everyday life that he or she is thankful for. From trees to swings, from stars to moms, each page of this book builds on each other and also tells the story of “a day in a life of a child” from sun up to sun down. What makes this book really unique are the illustrations. Each page has eight boxes with eight different scenes, depicting the line of text in eight different countries–including the United States, France, and Bolivia. Check out the Amazon link below to have a chance to look inside the book!

So, what do I do with this book?

1. Use it around Thanksgiving time to show children how to be thankful for the everyday blessings in their life. Have them do their own version of Thank You, World. What would they be thankful for?

2. Divide the students into small groups and give each one of them one of the countries to study. Ask them to study the illustrations about France for example and write down some things they notice. Then have students read their lists aloud to compare and contrast life in different places.

3. Create a Thank You, School class book or a Thank You, Home. Each child could start out with a sentence, such as: “Thank you, School for ____________________________________” and then fill in the blank. They would illustrate their sentence and then use a spiral binder to connect the pages.