Recently my girls and I "traveled" to India. By traveled I simply mean we immersed ourselves in stories and videos that gave us a glimpse into the culture and life of this great country.
Together we read the book Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan. This book is about a young girl who is given away to be married at the age of 13. As we read, we googled facts and places mentioned in the story to verify and learn more. It piqued our interest and is what caused us to dive deeper into this country and its culture.
Using the book Give Your Child the World by Jamie Martin and our local library search catalog, we soon had several more books about India to read and study. (Side note....there is a summer book club using this book as it's launch pad! For more information, head HERE.)
Although Compassion no longer works in India, I really liked the concept of the book Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw , where two boys exchange letters and learn about each others lives - the similarities and the differences.
Because my girls are older (ages 11 and 13), we also got several non-picture books. I didn't read them all, but I read most of them. CAUTION: Sold by Paticia McCormick deals with the subject of human trafficking - particularly in the sex industry, so caution is advised if handing this book to a younger child. Also, there was some swearing in Chloe in India by Kate Darnton.
There are several titles in the Christian Heroes, Then and Now series that are based in India: Ida Scudder, Sundar Singh, William Carey, Amy Carmichael and David Livingstone. These highlight Christian heroes, and although I haven't read any of them, I'm sure they are safe reads for older children.
Our library also had the following two dvds and we enjoyed watching these. The Going to School in India one was particularly fascinating and featured several different types of schools all over the country.
Finally, we ended this focus on India with a buffet lunch at a local Indian restaurant. We enjoyed sampling various dishes and talking about some of the things we had learned.
Next stop on our world tour - PERU!
