Shinsuke Yoshitake Books

This is a colourful book about how useful maps can be in everyday life, which is told in an engaging, humorous way for a younger audience. It challenges what a map actually is and cleverly explains, using entertaining examples, that maps can take many different forms and quite simply are a way to help someone understand something better.

The book would be an excellent resource for teachers to use with the whole class or with individuals to help them better understand themselves. There is a lovely example of a map of ‘what humans are like’ for use by aliens who have landed on Earth – this could be used as a stimulus for children to create a map about themselves and what they want people to know about them.

The book also talks about the fact that some maps are designed so that everyone can understand them, whereas others are just for one person – the book could be used to encourage children to make a personal map to help them understand something about themselves: perhaps about their feelings (there is a good example of this in the book).

Importantly, the book goes on to explain that while a map can help us to learn and understand things better, it doesn’t have all the answers and that’s okay. This is a wonderful tool for use in the primary classroom.