Calabash Cat and his Amazing Journey by James Rumford

Calabash Cat and his Amazing Journey, written and illustrated by James Rumford, is a great story!  Calabash cat starts out in the middle of Africa and sets out to find the end of the world.  He comes to the edge of the desert and decides it must be the end but he meets a camel that carries him through the desert to where the grassland begins.  Then he meets a horse that carries him through the grasslands, a tiger that carries him through the jungle, a whale that carries him across the ocean and an eagle that flies him high over the world and he decides that there is no end to the world.  Each animal that he meets thinks that the end of his habitat is the end of the world but Calabash Cat realizes that they all are wrong. An interesting feature to the book is that the text is written in both English and Arabic.

I loved this book and Anna enjoyed it too.  It is a great book to use to talk about how vast our world is and to talk about the different biomes of the world.

Update May 10, 2011:  As you can see below, James Rumford dropped by the blog to tell us about his new website.  Be sure to check out James Rumford's website, especially the Things to Do page which has suggestions for writers and artists inspired by Calabash Cat and his Amazing Journey.  Wonderful suggestions there!  Thanks for dropping by, James!