Peru Children's Books

I'm rethinking whether it's a good idea to take The Whirl Girl with me to the library to exchange one month's books for the next. In theory, it works. She sees the "Malaysia books" go in the return slot, and helps check out the "Peru books." Poof! It's a new month, with a clear transition in her mind.

In reality, she had very little interest in being at the library and looking through books. This time I was much more organized, with a quick list of books I'd researched in advance, and I even had the call numbers of the areas where she could find and flip through related non-fiction books. But she just wasn't into it. I tried looking through shelves together. I tried sitting at a table with her and reading the pile we accumulated. Nothing worked. So we packed up and headed home quickly. I think next month I'll give it a go on my own. An antsy kid and a frustrated mom don't make for a great adventure.

How are your trips to the libraries with the kiddos?

Despite the not-so-fun outing, we are excited about our books! The Whirl Girl wanted to read her Peru books for sleepytime that night.

Also, I've added all of our books - with reviews! - onto a Whirls and Twirls account on Goodreads. They are shelved by country for quick searches. (You can also see what's currently on our Goodreads shelf on the right sidebar of this site).

Here's our top five for Peru:

Up and Down the Andes: A Peruvian Festival Tale
written by Laurie Krebs, illustrated by Aurelia Fronty
This is a nice rhyming story as individual kids from all over Peru travel to Cusco for the Incan Festival of the Sun God. It has rich, colorful illustrations, and I like that it features children (as opposed to most of our other books with animal characters). Also, there are a handful of well-written pages at the end with information about Peruvian festivals, geography and people.

Lost City: The Discovery of Macchu Picchu
by Ted Lewin
We had to have something about Macchu Picchu! (The Whirl Girl is already enjoying saying it). I probably would have preferred something a little more Inca-focused, but this is a good telling of how it was discovered. The text is a bit over The Whirl Girl's head, but it should be easy enough to simplify. It had a good sense of adventure and discovery to it.

How Llama Saved the Day
written by Janet Palazzo-Craig, illustrated by Craig Reasoner
This is a folk story about a great flood. It features lots of different animals from the region and has a simple, easy-to-follow story.

Love and Roast Chicken: A Trickster Tale from the Andes Mountains
by Barbara Knutson
This is another folktale, and a bit more complex. We'll see if The Whirl Girl can follow it. But it's not every day that you run across a book that has a cunning guinea pig as the hero.

We're Roaming in the Rainforest
written by Laurie Krebs, illustrated by Anne Wilson
I debated whether we should do another rainforest book this month, since we our Malaysia month had such a strong jungle focus. But our Peruvian books seemed to lean a little too heavily on the Andes, and I wanted to balance it out with another important part of Peruvian geography. Anyway, it's a good lesson that there are rainforests all over the world, and The Whirl Girl will like discovering that some of her jungle friends live in Peru too.


Here's a couple more that I couldn't find in Singapore, but would have liked to read:

Moon Rope
by Lois Elhert
This was especially enticing because it is bilingual (English-Spanish). It is a folktale featuring a fox, a mole and the moon.

The Littlest Llama
written by Jane Buxton, illustrated by Jenny Cooper
Though I think we have enough llama books (we also have a non-fiction llama book and two books from the "Llama Llama" series), I liked that this one features llamas living in their Andean environment.

Carolina's Gift: A Story of Peru
written by Katacha Diaz, illustrated by Gredna Landolt
The Whirl Girl identifies easily with stories featuring little girls. I think she would like this story about a girl looking for a present at the market for her grandmother.

Secrets of Ancient Cultures: The Inca: Activities and Crafts from a Mysterious Land
by Arlette N. Braman
A book full of Peruvian craft ideas?! Excellent. But that would be too easy, right?