Hello World: A Celebration of Languages and Curiosities

“Hello starts friendships. Hello opens doors,” writes Litton in this oversize board book atlas focused on world languages. Each continent gets its own spread, dotted with tiny images of people representing each nation, albeit reductively sometimes (a half-naked man in a towel alludes to Finland’s sauna culture, for example). Tiny, advent-calendar-style flaps reveal how to say hello in each country; lifting them uncovers phonetic pronunciations, the name of the language, and how many people speak it worldwide. Sidebars and larger flaps offer additional information about the languages and regions. Despite the book’s quirks—while the maps feature the borders between nations, few countries are explicitly named—it’s still an eye-opening look at greetings (and farewells) from around the globe. Ages 8–12. (Sept.)