Adventures to School: Real-Life Journeys of Students from Around the World

The husband-and-wife coauthors explore how children from 13 countries travel to school. The accounts, which are fictionalized but are based on the commutes of actual children, are told in vivid first-person narratives, which Muñoz conveys in gentle, earnest illustrations. A boy in Pakistan rides a rickshaw “so full that all of us can barely fit inside.” In Tokyo, a boy travels via subway, carrying a yellow flag so he can be spotted if he gets lost. Many of the journeys will be eye-opening to readers: in Bhuton, a girl walks three hours on foot to get to her school. Images made to resemble snapshots show each child in class and ready to learn, but readers will grasp the subtle message about how profoundly different a universal experience can be. Ages 4–8. (May)