My School in the Rain Forest: How Children Attend School Around the World

This book provides a nice introduction to the variety of different ways that students go to school. It was fascinating to read about schools on boats, over the radio, in a monastery, etc. The book focuses on the schools themselves rather than on the children. I would have liked more information about the students, but overall it provides a glimpse into the variety of ways the world has found to educate her children.

A wonderful book-- highly recommended!

When I gave "My School in the Rain Forest" to my grandson (age 10) for his birthday, along with other gifts, he looked through it quickly and said he would be taking it to school as he knew his teacher would also love it. After he read it, he did take it to school, and the whole class was able to enjoy this wonderful, entertaining, and informative book.

The concept of this book works well for teaching about diversity in the daily life of children around the world. The 13 schools are each given a two-page spread with color photos and a text box showing a map of the region with the particular country shown in a box, a picture of the country's flag, and about five sentences about the country itself. Readers learns about students who live far from a population center using computers to connect with teachers, students who are home-schooled, students who paddle small boats from home to a larger boat that serves as their school, and students whose schools are monasteries and castles.A couple issues with the book struck me immediately: the title, "My School in the Rain Forest," seems to indicate that the book is solely about one school in the rain forest, which it is not. The subtitle, "How Children Attend School Around the World," is a better representation of the book's contents. Also, there are two mistakes relating to country maps. The world map at the beginning of the book correctly shows the countries that include the schools being discussed, but on the two-page spreads, Afghanistan and Myanmar are incorrectly labelled in the box. This lack of editing brings my original rating of 4 stars to 3.

Join Margriet Ruurs for a trip around the world to see the wide variation in school facilities and resources to which some children have access. The reader can learn about children attending school behind a wall in Afghanistan, Cambodian children who paddle their own small boats to a floating school, students in a remote Indian village who sit on a roof-less dirt floor for their lessons, and Nepalese children who attend a boarding school high in the Himalayas.Not only does a country's general level of economic development play a role in the type and quality of schooling to which children have access, but parental preferences can also determine if children are home-schooled, go away to boarding school, rely on the internet for distance learning, use public transportation to get to school, or attend school in a more unusual setting. This book provides a refreshing look at school resources and emphasizes the importance of getting an education no matter where in the world one lives.