Author: Mick Webb
Publisher: Owlkids Books, Canada/USA (2015, originally published in London, UK in 2013)
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1771471558
This book begins with a world map guide of how to say "hello" in 48 different languages, and ends with a world map guide of how to say "goodbye" in those same languages. A nice touch to get children engaged in the concept that different ways of meeting and greeting people exist in different parts of the world. Being Australian, I naturally zoomed in on Australia which shows a geographically accurate marker for the Indigenous Australian language Noongar which exists (according to this source online) in the southwestern corner of Australia. However, is Noongar the only indigenous language in Australia? Is this language what all Australians speak? (Don't laugh - I've actually had people ask me what language we speak in Australia). Although the book seems jam packed with nicely laid-out information (and the only review on Amazon gives it five stars for engaging the reviewer's niece), there are other issues that came to my attention. Since I am Australian and have lived half of my adult language in Japan speaking Japanese, I decided to limit my comments to these areas of the book. Despite the Australian indigenous language Noongar being used as an example on the world map, no mention of Australian indigenous languages appear in reference to dying languages or new languages, despite there being a lot of available information on both. To reduce indigenous Australian languages to a passing example on a world map and then ignore them on other maps and written text seems misleading and confusing. |