CIAO BAMBINO!: A Child’s Tour of Italy (Paperback)
June 10, 2009 by Traveler
Filed under Travel Italy Guides
Product Description
Enjoy a tour of Italy through a child’s scrapbook. Whether you are planning to travel abroad with your children or simply to expose them to foreign countries, Ciao Bambino! will provide a starting point. Your children will discover differences and similarities between Italy and home, while sharing a young boy’s vacation to Italy with his teddy bear companion. Bonus, you may learn a few Italian words and novelties on the adventure. Pronunciation and translation guide provided at the back of the book.
From the Author
With a four year old son and a one year old daughter, my personal goal was to write a book for preschoolers that exposed them to Italian language and cultural novelties, but was more than another picture dictionary. It had to be fun and engage the preschooler with familiar things from home, while sharing novelties from another country. Beautifully illustrated in original watercolor art, the 36 page book shares a tour of Italy through a child’s scrapbook. Throughout the fictional story, the young boy and his teddy bear travel companion share their travel adventure, and teach twenty five Italian words along the way. Fantastico!
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What a refreshing idea in children’s books! Parents of small children now have a resource to prepare their child for travel, which will help the little vacationer better connect with and understand where they are headed. The beautifull watercolor illustrations add to this highly engaging story as the child learns about the Italian language recognizing, colors, numbers and common speach. Included at the end of the book is a glossary of all the new words for both child and parent reference. If you are headed out on a family vacation, or have friends taking off, this little book is a great traveller. I still read it to my three year old at bedtime. Hopefully there will be more books from Danna Troncatty Leahy in the future.
We were so disappointed with this book that we returned it. For the price, it’s a very thin book – only 30 pages. For preparing a child for a trip to Italy, the illustrations were especially disppointing. Only a few offered images of what might be seen in Italy. Most of the others were generic illustrations that could have been set anywhere, such as a child and his stuffed bear eating a pizza, the circle of a flashlight beam on the pavement.
I don’t know if I was more disappointed or angered at this little insignificant but dangerous book. The contents has very little to do with what children, who travel to Italy, will ever encounter. What I find it does is continue the negative strereotyping of the Italians. Really! No one stomps on grapes and a child who will visit a farm in Italy will hardly see such outdated stereotypical occurrences. Can food be the only thing one would like of Italy? Of course, since the book failed to explain what other things of wonder a child might see. I bought this for my grandchildren, as sadly there are very few book on Italy with some italian words. I returned the book because I would NEVER introduce Italy to my grandchildren this way. A very expensive book that perpatuates outdated images. Poor job.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Too generic
I bought this book for my children before heading to Italy. I thought it would be the perfect “map” for them. I was sorely mistaken.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ciao bambino: A Child’s Tour of Italy
My daughter used this book with her 4-year-old students at the preschool where she teaches. Each month her students learn about a country so this book was used when they were…
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charming!
What a wonderful introduction for young children to the Italian culture and language — not to mention the notion of international travel in general!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review from Buyer
I am an American of Italian descent and proud of my heritage. I purchased Ciao Bambino! to read to my grandchildren, Gianna and Dante.