About This Book:
From routes to scale, a young child and her dad explore the world of maps in a charming story encouraging readers to chart their own neighborhoods.
One day, Anna’s friend Zane sends her an invitation to come over to play, and inside the envelope is a map. But Anna is convinced the map can’t be right—why has Zane put his house in the middle and hers on the edge? So Anna decides to draw a map of her own, and Dad joins in as well. With an inviting narrative, child-friendly illustrations, and running commentary about various aspects of maps, aspiring cartographers are introduced to everything from symbols to point of view, road maps to family trees—and even a special “cat map” of Anna’s pet’s favorite spots. A final spread spurs readers to try their own hand at mapmaking.
*Review Contributed By Sara Perrera, Staff Reviewer*
Great Introduction to Maps
From Here to There: A First Book of Maps is a wonderful introduction to different types of maps and how they can be used.
Anna receives a letter from her friend Zane inviting her to a play date at his apartment. He includes a hand-drawn map so Anna can find his apartment. Anna decides she wants to draw a map and her dad shows her various types of maps that help inspire Anna.
What I Liked: I loved how the story simplified maps in a way that young readers can understand. The picture map in particular is a fun map to read and I like how the illustrator used familiar community buildings like the library and the coffee shop as part of the map.
What Left Me Wanting More: I thought the book did a wonderful job of teaching readers about different maps and terminology but I was confused by them teaching about family trees. Yes, it is a type of map, but it seemed like a harder concept to understand and didn’t make sense to the story. Instead, I would have liked them to just build upon the map skills they already mentioned.
Teachers will love this book to help them reinforce map skills in school-aged children.
