British Museum: Celebrate!: Discover 50 Fantastic Festivals from Around the World

British Museum: Celebrate! is a joyful book, offering an introduction to 50 festivals from around the world. The bright red cover with its tumbling letters just invites readers to discover more about the little illustrations surrounding the title.

In terms of traditional non-fiction text features, the book has an excellent contents page which organises the festivals into those which are Worldwide and then by continent, a clear glossary and a comprehensive index, making it easy to locate information quickly and with ease. As it says in the introduction, 'It would be impossible to include every festival from around the world…', but author Laura Mucha has done an amazing job of including a very diverse and fascinating range, making this book a joy from start to finish!

Each festival is given two pages, bursting with appealing illustrations which reflect the spirit of the occasion. The date and location of each festival is given and information is presented in accessible chunks, spread across the pages with an explanation of why and how celebrations take place. Touches of humour are added through speech bubbles and the pictures where appropriate.

I learned so much from reading this book and would happily add it to any school, class or home library, confident that children would both enjoy it and gain much from it. Beautifully presented, it is a real celebration of celebrations - a lovely gift!

112 pages / Reviewed by Sue Wilsher, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 5+

British Museum: Celebrate! is a beautifully written book by Laura Mucha, published in collaboration with The British Museum. It is a collective feast of 50 festivals celebrated around the world. The world's most exciting festivals are celebrated in this book from different countries, cultures and religions. Some may be familiar to the reader but there are definitely some that will not be and this will encourage you to find out more.

The reader will be mesmerised by the illustrations that accompany the detailed description upon how these festivals are celebrated around the globe. This book will engage the reader and help them to understand why and how festivals bring people together to enjoy celebrating. It will take them across the globe to read about places and people that they may never have known existed.

This non-fiction text would be a fantastic accompaniment to any whole school assembly and would be a welcomed teaching aid to support the RE and PSHE curriculum throughout the school. Children will enjoy perusing the pages of this beautifully illustrated book and they would become a more knowledgeable global citizen. Every school library should have a copy of this book.

112 pages / Reviewed by Hayley Summerfield, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 7+