How I learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz. Read by Ed O'Neill
Having fled from war in their troubled homeland, a boy and his family are living in poverty in a strange country. Food is scarce, so when the boy’s father brings home a map instead of bread for supper, at first the boy is furious. But when the map is hung on the wall, it floods their cheerless room with color. As the boy studies its every detail, he is transported to exotic places without ever leaving the room, and he eventually comes to realize that the map feeds him in a way that bread never could.
In an autobiographical story, Shulevitz recounts an event from his childhood, when his refugee family had fled to Turkestan. At a time when his family was poor and hungry, his father spent what little money they had on a map of the world instead of on food. After getting over his initial anger and disappointment, young Uri developed a fascination with the map, at first for the bright colors and then for the details that would spur his artistic imagination as he dreamed of faraway places he could visit vicariously. The artist’s whimsical pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations show the places in the child’s imagination coming to life as he flies over continents, picturing what they would be like. An endnote includes a photograph of the author at age seven and two drawings he made while he was a child: a map of Africa, drawn at age ten, and a marketplace in Turkestan, drawn when he was thirteen. All in all, it’s a wonderful tribute to Shulevitz’s father, who obviously understood that sometimes it’s more important to nourish the soul than the body. Honor Book, 2009 Charlotte