This book con­tains descrip­tions of eight dif­fer­ent hol­i­days cel­e­brat­ed world­wide and a sto­ry to accom­pa­ny each one. Each sto­ry is beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed, and pat­terned bor­ders sur­round the hol­i­day descrip­tions. Some of the sto­ries are folk­tales, for exam­ple a Russ­ian fairy tale enti­tled ​“Father Frost” and a Celtic sto­ry called ​“The Hal­loween Changeling.” Oth­er sto­ries are impor­tant to the reli­gions described, includ­ing the birth of Jesus and the life of Bud­dha. The only Jew­ish sto­ry is a retelling of the Book of Esther. While the sto­ry of Esther is told fair­ly cor­rect­ly, the one page descrip­tion of Purim con­tains sev­er­al inac­cu­ra­cies. Peo­ple do not cheer the hero­ine dur­ing a megilla read­ing; Purimsh­piels are still per­formed today, and were nev­er pan­tomimed. Peo­ple do not exchange presents; they give gifts of food. If there are this many mis­takes in the descrip­tion of a famil­iar hol­i­day, how many might there be for unfa­mil­iar tra­di­tions? The writ­ing is ser­vice­able and the sto­ries enjoy­able, but the over use of the expla­na­tion point becomes very dis­tract­ing. Even more trou­bling in a book that pur­ports to be about appre­ci­at­ing oth­er tra­di­tions and cul­tures, the assump­tion is made that the read­er is Chris­t­ian, ​“Decem­ber 25th is the day on which one of our best-known and best-loved fes­ti­vals takes place,” but, ​“the Jew­ish peo­ple still remem­ber how they have been threat­ened.” This book is not rec­om­mend­ed for pur­chase. Ages 8 – 12.