A Picture Book a Day for a Year: Day 269

Picture Book: People

Author & Illustrator: Peter Spier

Summary: This big picture book is a celebration of the design and diversity of human beings all over the world. The detailed illustrations are particularly fun to explore. Topics range from skin color to eye shape, home design to written language, and pet varieties to prosperity. Diverse religions are mentioned as well as dissimilarities in eating. The pages on games played in specific countries are particularly interesting as are the various clothes humans wear.   

Hanna’s Comments: Almost a classic according to my PBT categories, this book is a tad outdated, but there are too many gems here to discard it. A few statistics on the first page will need to be up-dated. Simply look up these figures on the internet and apply some replacement numbers via Post-it notes. Peter Spier wrote this book in the pre-internet age so when you get to the page about ways humans communicate, have your listeners add to this list. You might want to set out this picture book in a learning station to allow it to be perused and interest to build as students view the many detailed illustrations.

Publisher & Date of Publication: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1980

Age & Grade Appropriateness: 3 and up, Pre and up

# of Pages: 48

Available in Spanish? Not at present

Formats other than Book: Tablet

PBT Category: Award Winner, Non-fiction, Pre 2K

PBT Topics this Book Connects with: abundance/bounty, creation, differences, diversity, Earth/world, equality/inequality, humanity, individuality/uniqueness, variety, wonder

Scripture Connections: God creates human beings (Genesis 1 & 2); for by him all things are created (Colossians 1:16); behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages (Revelation 7:9)

Idea(s) for Application: Share this book with a group of children in your faith community when talking about God’s design for beautiful diversity among human beings.