View source for One World Together by Catherine Anholt and Laurence Anholt

{{infobox2
|title=One World Together
|author=Catherine Anholt and Laurence Anholt 
|reviewer=Zoe Morris
|genre=For Sharing
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1847804051
|pages=32
|publisher=Frances Lincoln Children's Books
|date=October 2013
|aznuk=1847805256
|aznus=1847804055
|cover=1847805256
|website=
|video=
|summary=A lovely book about life in different countries, this is beautifully presented and promotes friendship and tolerance. A must buy!
}}
A child (from an unknown country) is gallivanting throughout the world looking for a friend. He stops in Brazil and meets Paulo. He would be a good friend. Then he’s off to Morocco where he meets Mohamed. ''He'' would be a good friend too. You can see where this is going. From country to country we travel, constantly meeting exciting and interesting new children and learning about their lives. They would all be great friends for our little narrator, but who should he choose? Spoiler alert: he realises you don’t have to have just one friend, and in fact all the children of the world can be friends. Awwww.

''One World Together'' is a beautifully presented, colourful, hardback book that promotes the differences between cultures, and although this is done by using different countries, it could also be a building block for talking within a single town or city where there are differences to be seen. The format is simple but effective. Each double page spread starts with us meeting the child, learning where they’re from, and having them greet us in their language: ''Ni Hao! Jambo!'' Then, on the second page, we learn a few facts about this new potential friend, such as how they get about and what sort of home they live in.  These are cleverly interspersed with traits that are not country specific as well – like having a new baby sister to play with, or liking computer games – so readers can see that they have lots in common with these lovely foreign children, even though they might live on opposite sides of the world and have different coloured skin.

The cover tells us there’s a big fold out surprise inside, and when I folded it out in the office I was met with the comment ‘We used to have that on the wall at school’ from a former teaching assistant. I told her she couldn’t have had, because it was a brand new book, but I got her point because the picture, of a globe with children round the edge, holding hands, is not a new idea, even if it’s not looked quite like this before. 

The level of detail in this book is much higher than in other ‘different cultures’ ones I remember reading when little. I certainly never had a child sleeping under a mosquito net in mine, nor a child eating sushi. The illustrations are delightful, friendly and appealing to both kids and their parents. The text is simple and repetitive, so while it doesn’t have a rhyme, there’s still a bit of a rhythm. 

This is an all round excellent book that I really enjoyed looking at. It has the right message without being too preachy (it’s about wanting to befriend other children because they’re fun and interesting, rather than because you have to have token foreign/ethnic/whatever friends) and I think any child would love to have a copy on their bookshelf.

I’d like to thank the publishers for sending us this book.

Children of this age might also like [[Barbapapa by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor]], also international but in a different way.

{{amazontext|amazon=1847805256}} 
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[[Category:Catherine Anholt]]
[[Category:Laurence Anholt]]