Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in
exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I
compensated in any other way.

Travel the World with Books

Homeschool Review Crew

We love to travel the world with books because travelling the world in a 15 passenger van isn’t feasible for us right now.  Because of this, we were very excited for this review through the Homeschool Review Crew.  We have used and loved Carole P. Roman books before so we knew whatever we were given would be wonderful for us this time. Crew members were offered Carole P. Roman’s assorted series to choose from and we chose to work on some geography this time with her If You Were Me and Lived In series. 

We received four books from the If You Were Me and Lived In. . . series.  The four titles we received are:

1. If You Were Me and Lived In . . . Israel
2. If You Were Me and Lived In . . .  Russia
3. If You Were Me and Lived In . . .  Scotland
4. If You Were Me and Lived In . . .  Mexico  

About the Books

Carole P. Roman is an award-winning author who once taught social studies.  This makes sense when you look at some of the books she’s written.  Some focus on geography and cultures like the ones we’ve reviewed this time while others focus on history.  We’ve reviewed some of her history titles as well.  You can read reviews of our history titles HERE and HERE while you can also check out some other cultural/geography book reviews HERE and HERE.

For the geography and cultural books like we received, each book tells you about the dress, language, food, and culture of what it would be like to live there right now.  These are centred around what it would be like for a child in that country since they are written for children. 

Our Thoughts

As often happens with these books we get to choose the first few and then a surprise one or two gets thrown in.  In this case, we had already reviewed Mexico.  For us though it’s okay to have duplicates of these books!  I just stick one on our school shelf and one on our anybody can read whenever shelf and life goes on and learning happens more often!

Israel:

The first title I requested was Israel.  We tend to study Israel and the Jewish people whenever we celebrate certain holidays.  One such holiday that is coming up is Passover next month so I thought this would be a great book to add to our rotation.  We have lots of titles that are just about Passover as well that this joins.  

While the book doesn’t talk a lot about Judaism it does talk about Israel and common foods.  It also mentions Purim.  My kids are excited to try some of the foods mentioned in the book.  

Scotland:

When we talked about where we would go if we could travel the world with books Scotland was another spot that showed up.  My ancestors on one side are Scotch-Irish so this seemed like a good spot to visit!

Fun things from Scotland are figuring out your family clan and tartan.  We’ve already got the food down by eating oatmeal several times a week.  I asked the kids if we should make Haggis when we butcher our sheep this spring and that was a resounding NO after they read what it was.  

Russia:

Next, we were off to Russia!  Not 100% sure why we chose this one other than it was a country we’d not been to visit in books before.  It’s cold there and my kids didn’t want to visit during the winter though I’d love all the snow!

While I’ve never made a traditional borscht I do add beets to stews so my kids already know basically what that would taste like.  Some are more fans of it than others but all eat it.  

A fun fact that I didn’t know is that Russia has nine different times zones in the country!  That’s a lot of time changing if you drive from one side to the other.  

A recipe we’ll be making soon is Piroshky.  We already make something similar to this but this will be a great learning experience for my kids on how to make them!

Mexico:

Our last stop on our travel the world with books is in Mexico.  We’ve visited here before but there is always room for repeat visits.  If you followed the links above you’ve visited our other reviews of Mexico.  

We’ve actually never made tamales before so I think we’ll do that in the next week or two while we reread this book.

We love these books and all of the Carole P. Roman books that we’ve had the pleasure of reading.  Definitely recommend that you get some to try out and read.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised at all the facts presented in such a fun way for kids to enjoy and learn. 

Learn More

You can learn more about the Carole P. Roman books by reading all of the linked reviews over on the Main Blog Post on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  Each reviewer was able to choose their books from a vast array of titles so you’re sure to find titles that you might be interested in.  Carole P. Roman can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. We love to travel the world with books and hope you enjoy this as well.