Welcome to metomi.com, your online source of great reads and activities for preschoolers! It's November and the autumn leaves have been lovely here in Toronto, Canada! This month we are reading about interesting children, creatures and places from all around the world - from the comfort of home! Try a great version of an old tale or a moment in time as seen through the eyes of a child! And don't forget to visit our Fun Stuff page to download some travel-themed stationery fun, great for children to send to their loved ones! We will revisit the world theme every so often, to shed some well-deserved light on books that offer a glimpse of the world beyond our own neighbourhoods! Happy Reading and see you in December!

A non-fictional work about children living in countries around the world, told in first person by the children themselves. The reader learns about what is most important to these young people: their family, friends, school, favourite foods, and so on. Young readers easily grasp the similarities and differences between themselves and these young people, whether they are virtually next door or living on the other side of the world. The book is based on the authors' travels over a two year period, and was published in association with the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) , to highlight the 50th anniversary of the organization back in 1996. Once available at UNICEF gift kiosks during the December holiday season, it is now more easily found at your local library or bookstore. The smiles on these pages are infectious! And we learn to better appreciate the beauty in the most (extra)ordinary of places, things, routines and relationships - theirs and ours.

This story tells of a beautiful magic gourd which grants its owner any material item they wish, such as food or money. As reward for having done a good deed, Rabbit becomes the lucky recipient of the gourd and uses it to feed his hungry family as well as his neighbours. All is well until the greedy king is made aware of the gourd, and takes it away from Rabbit. But the good guys (animals) prosper in the end by way of a fortunate and comical twist, while the king is humbled and wiser from the experience. We always enjoy a book that reaches deep into a culture and shares a colourful glimpse of it with us - the prints on the ever-changing gourd, as well as other aspects of Mali culture and language, are explained following the story.

Here's another book that will introduce young readers to travel...with a top-notch travel guide in Canadian illustrator Barbara Reid! We love this sweet book of simple, catchy rhymes and beautiful plasticine artwork that tells of a loving relationship between a hip adventurer grandmother and her granddaughter. With each trip around the world, the grandmother asks her granddaughter what gift she would like from afar. And always, in a manner that only children (and good storytellers) can, the girl asks for only the simplest of pleasures, and is just as thrilled with being grandmother's most cherished penpal as with the actual gifts themselves. We follow the girl as she blossoms into a young woman, the lucky bearer of a lasting gift - the legacy of a grandmother's love.

This is another great book from Demi, the author of One Grain of Rice (which we listed in our Girls are Great month ~ peek in our Archives). The story takes place in olden-day China, where we meet a young boy living a simple life, who is somehow able to coax a beautiful plant from any seed through devotion and hard work. The ruler of the land meanwhile is getting older and seeks a successor in a young child. He sends a request across the countryside looking for the child who can grow his chosen seeds. Seems like our young fellow is a shoo-in for the contest, but try as he might he is unable to get this seed to sprout. A delightful and satisfying surprise ending makes the mounting suspense worthwhile. Always nice when the little guy wins!

A sweet book for young travellers! Follow a little girl on her adventures around the world, in search of the perfect ingredients for her apple pie. We travel by boat, train, plane, car and bus to places like Italy for some lovely semolina wheat, France for some fresh eggs, Sri Lanka for a fine piece of kurundu bark for cinnamon, and so on, until the shopping list is filled. Then it's back home, busy in the kitchen, to prepare the delicious pie. And after all that talk about food, we always appreciate having a recipe to try with the kids! Marjorie Priceman's illustrations are lovely, and we will be looking out for more of her books!