This Is the Way We Go to School: A Book About Children Around the World (by Edith Baer)

This book has a winning concept: Let's take a look at all the ways children around the world travel to and from school! But the presentation leaves much to be desired. A poorly designed world map requires readers to flip from the map to a list of names to a page featuring a particular child. Also, nearly half the locations are in the United States, an excessive sampling for a book with "Children Around the World" in the subtitle.

The book has not been updated, so errors such as a reference to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics persist. The Spanish-English bilingual edition, Asi Vamos a La Escuela, published in 1999, which may be more up-to-date. The illustrations set a cheerful mood but don't provide useful information: When Akinyi sprints for the train that'll carry her across a mountain chain, the area that springs to mind is Japan -- that she's Kenyan comes as a surprise.