Wonderful Houses Around the World

by Yoshio Komatsu, Akira Nishiyama (Illustrator)

Overview

Travel to 10 different countries, and learn about the children, their families, and their unique homes.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words—and that’s never been more true than with Wonderful Houses Around the World. The informative book introduces children to a variety of cultures with 10 glorious, two-page photographic spreads of homes and the families who live inside. Each exterior picture is accompanied by an illustration of the home’s interior, with various family members engaged in typical daily activities. Descriptive captions explain the everyday lives of the children and families: where each house is located, the environmental conditions that affect the house design, how each family lives in the home, and their possessions— all providing interesting glimpses of life in other cultures.

There has never been a photographer of buildings like Yoshio Komatsu. He has traveled extensively around the world for more than 25 years, photographing hand-built homes. The 10 houses profiled here include a red-mud dwelling with thatched towers in Togo, a yurt in Mongolia, a donut-shaped communal building in China, and more. Other countries visited in this educational book include Bolivia, India, Indonesia, Romania, Senegal, Spain, and Tunisia.

Book Features

• Spotlight on 10 homes in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America
• Large, full-color photo of each home
• Detailed interior illustrations by Akira Nishiyama
• Captions and text about the children’s daily lives

Fascinating and unique, Wonderful Houses Around the World gives children a welcome introduction to other places and other lives throughout the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780936070346
Publisher:	Adventure Publications, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/28/2004
Series:	Discoveries in Palaeontology
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	1,061,837
Product dimensions:	7.56(w) x 9.83(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	5 - 10 Years

About the Author

Yoshio Komatsu has traveled all over the world for more than 25 years, shooting pictures of simple homes and the people who live in them. He has published several books in Japanese, including Living on Earth. His first book in English, Built by Hand: Vernacular Buildings Around the World, was published by Gibbs Smith in 2003. Yoshio’s photographs appear frequently in magazines and calendars in Japan, as well as in books. His wife, artist Eiko Komatsu, often travels with him, and she created the preliminary drawings for the houses shown in this book. Yoshio and Eiko, when not traveling, live in Tokyo, Japan.

Akira Nishiyama studied at the Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo. She has done essays and illustrations for lifestyle magazines and books, including Treasure Box for Wonderful Living and Coordinate Book.

Read an Excerpt

Mongolia: A White House in the Grasslands

The grasslands continue as far as the eye can see. White specks dot the landscape here and there. As you get closer, you can see that these specks are actually houses. These are yurts (or gers), the portable, folding homes of people who live as herders of sheep and horses. Yurts are set up in places where water is easy to get and where there is grass for the horses and sheep to eat.

When I visited this home on the steppe plateau of Tov Aimag, I was greeted with a big bowlful of koumiss, a fermented drink made from mare’s milk. (A mare is a female horse.) When I finished one bowl, they poured me another. I ended up having four big bowls, or about half a gallon. The air is very dry here in Mongolia, and the koumiss made me feel very good.

Who lives here? A father, a mother, and three children

Captions:

The outside is covered in felt.

The framework of the house is made of wood. After the framework is set up, it is covered with felt made from sheeps’ wool. Once the felt is tied down, the house is finished. When it is time to move, it is taken apart and moved on horseback.

Horse droppings are used as fuel for the stove.

Children learn to ride horses when they are about four years old.

Koumiss, a beverage made from mare’s milk

Having a foal nearby at milking time encourages the mare to give more milk.

Table of Contents

Map

Mongolia: A White House in the Grasslands

China: Living Together in a Circle

Indonesia: Houses with Pointed Roofs

India: Houses Wearing Hats

Romania: A House with Eyes in Its Roof

Tunisia: Living Underground

Spain: Houses That Breathe Through Chimneys

Togo: Earthen Castles

Senegal: Is This Roof Upside Down?

Bolivia: Houses Shaped Like Acorns

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Gr 3-5-Clear, color photo spreads and explanatory paragraphs introduce 10 "wonderful houses" from a variety of cultural backgrounds. A circular tulou in China, a felt yurt in Mongolia, an underground home in Tunisia, and an earthen "castle" in Togo are among the featured domiciles. Each picture has a full-spread color diagram of a structural cutaway with captions that describe architectural details and/or furnishings and indicate the makeup of the family/families in residence. The author's personal comments enliven the terse text, and his three-sentence introduction mentions his enthusiasm for "interesting" domestic design. An additional purchase that may be paired with Peter Spier's People (Doubleday, 1980) for a rich ethnological experience or Piero Ventura's Houses (Houghton, 1993) for a historical comparison with less exotic examples.-Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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