Book Description
for Rainbow Round the World by Elizabeth Yates
From The Jane Addams Children's Book Award
In the early 1950's, Elizabeth Yates, accompanied by an eleven-year-old companion John Dexter, travels to Nicaragua, Bolivia, Morocco, Jordan, Greece, Iran, India, Thailand, Philippines and Japan as ambassador for the newly-established United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF. While Yates is in official conferences with bureaucrats, John is on his own with children of the area. Chapters told from John's point of view frame his individual humanitarian efforts with information about UNICEF's massive campaign to end childhood hunger, disease and ignorance worldwide. Priceless as a vivid eyewitness account of the early philosophy, thrust and optimism of UNICEF, this creatively-written account details practices and approaches that would be recognized as ethnocentric from today's vantage point.
The Jane Addams Children's Book Award: Honoring Peace and Social Justice in Children's Books Since 1953. © Scarecrow Press, 2013. Used with permission.