Where Are You Going? To See My Friend!

The book starts with a dog who runs into a cat and the dog tells the cat he’s going to see his friend. The cat asks the dog if the cat can join, the dog replies, “Yes, come along, My friend is your friend.” While on their journey the cat and dog stop to talk to a chicken, goat, rabbit, and a boy. Together they all walk and become friends even though they are all different. The first half of the book is in English and the second half of the book is in Japanese. The two languages meet in the middle when all the characters become friends. This book is great to teach children about multiculturalism and differences, the plot is simple.

In my opinion, this is a great multicultural books for two reasons: the engaging writing, and the illustrations. This story has several different animals throughout and each time the animal is speaking, there is a picture of the animal next to their dialog. This makes it easier for readers to follow along and have a visual representation too. Secondly, I really enjoyed the illustrations. They are bright and vivid, readers can easily distinguish the dog, cat, rooster,and billy goat. The second half of this book, is in Japanese and the illustrations of the animals are more lightly colored, with soft brush stroke. This is a great book that could tie different cultures together. The overall message of this book is friendship is the same, no show more matter what language you speak. show less

Eric Carle joined forces with Kazuo Iwanura and created a fun song book about a group of animals who joined together with a boy who speaks English and a Japanese girl and create a song! I like how this book combines illustrations of collage style, like Carle's, and illustrations with a japanese style. The texts are also accompanied by Japanese translations! This book would be fun to sing with a class, such as have a group sing the japanese parts and another sing the English. Also, the class can create a short Japanese song, with each student creating their own word. This book shows a strong and fun connection between two different cultures.

This book tells the story of several animals following each other to go and meet their new shared friend. When the animals reach their friend it is a young american boy. The boy then meets up with his friend who is a young girl from Tokyo. The friends and animals then sing a song in both English and Japanese. The story then continues in reverse, saying goodbye to all of the animals in Japanese. This book is described to be a “story of friendship in two languages” and indeed it is. I think most children would have trouble understanding the language concepts behind this book. However I feel it is a very creative and different way for a children's book to be written. It could be used as an introduction into studying some Japanese show more cultures and customs within the classroom. show less

I enjoyed reading this book for many reasons. This book has symbols next to each line of dialogue to indicate which character is speaking. Each symbol is a small black and white image of the animal’s face that is speaking. The author’s use of repetition was another element of this book that I liked. On each page the phrases “Where are you going?”, “To see my friend”, “May I come with you?” and “yes come along” are all repeated. I also liked that this book was written in Japanese and English. This is a great feature for bilingual Japanese & English readers. The main idea of this book revolves around friendship and being welcoming to others. The cat and the dogs are welcoming to all of the animals that want to join show more them on their journey. show less

I liked this book for many different reasons. I liked this book because it provides a multicultural view of friendship. The language of this book was very well written. I liked the fact that the author incorporated both languages throughout the story. For example, in the end of the book there is a friendship song. The authors wrote the English version of the song and then they wrote the Chinese version. This gives students an experience to read and look at a song in another language. The authors also included drawings of the characters next to each character as they spoke. For example, when the cat spoke, the author includes a drawing of a cat. When the dog spoke, the author included a dog drawing next to his words. I liked this because show more it shows visually which character is speaking. This is good for younger readers because sometimes they may confuse who is speaking in the story. This book is Modern Fantasy however, the plot is logical and it seems real. Children would understand that cats and dogs do not speak in real life however, they are being compared to people. show less

Just like in his many other books, you can tell by the illustrations that this is an Eric Carle book. The pages are a little different because he has written this book with another author, but his craft remains the same. Another one of Carle's crafts is to use animals that talk. They also ask questions and repetition to get the reader to sort of read a long with it.

This story is a about a dog going to see his friend. Along the way he runs into many of his other friends the join the journey with him. While singing and dancing the sounds of each animal are repeated.