Photographs, accessible prose, and personal accounts paint a portrait of innovative schools in this vibrant, globe-trotting guide. In post-Katrina New Orleans, students plant an -edible schoolyard.- In Kenya, a school provides dowries for fathers-in exchange, their daughters go to school for eight years, rather than marrying. Hughes-s examples of grassroots education in action are inspirational and informative. Ages 9-13. (Sept.)

How children are educated is central to how they live, and this lively picture book featuring 23 different contemporary schools is an exciting way to connect readers with children in classrooms around the world. Included are a rain-forest school in Brazil, tent schools set up after the Haitian earthquake, and a school in the Himalayas that blends Tibetan Buddhist culture with modern technology using solar panels for electricity. The presentation is never romanticized, and the down-to-earth details capture both the excitement and the challenges students face in daily life, with several full-color photographs on every page. A child in Uganda has 100 classmates, for example. A Canadian child who travels because of her father's job sends her homework by e-mail to her teacher every day. In Siberia, teachers arrive by sleigh to indigenous communities and set up school inside a tent, with a computer powered by a generator; and in Scotland, a brand-new school is specially designed for the disabled. A global map shows each school's location, and kids will recognize both the hardships and the exciting diversity.

Surprising schools to be found around the world include new schools that work with the environment, schools in places where none existed and schools that meet children more than halfway. Directly addressed to the reader, lively text in short chunks on double-page spreads introduces 23 schools from 20 countries. Each is located on a map, described briefly and shown in colorful photographs emphasizing the students. Sidebars may spotlight a particular student or offer more details about school life, the building process or events from the school's history. Each spread also includes a boxed fast fact or two. Many of these schools are new, in remote, out-of-the-way places, places where kids weren't previously served or places where man-made or natural disasters have disrupted children's lives. The author makes a point of noting the use of local materials and energy-efficient construction, and she gives credit to the founders. Schools for street kids and refugees, one for girls who would otherwise be married, another for children with sensory impairments, schooling by e-mail and unschooling are some of the more unusual examples. The text concludes with a list of websites of schools and sponsoring organizations and another reminder of the U.N. declaration that every child as the right to an education. Unusual and useful. (acknowledgements, credits, index, map) (Nonfiction. 9-13)

Gr 2-5 While many children take their school routine for granted, others struggle to receive an education. This book examines innovative schools around the world, the educators who brought them about, and the students who attend them. The book has three chapters. "Working with the Environment" features boat schools, rainforest schools, and tent schools; "No School? No Way!," focuses on educational opportunities for disenfranchised populations; and "One Size Doesn't Fit All" is about unconventional programs in nontraditional settings. Each spread is devoted to one school, with five to seven paragraphs of text, vivid full-color photographs, and a map indicating its general area of the world. The strong emphasis on humanitarianism will move, excite, and inspire those reading about Hurricane Katrina survivors planting gardens, homeless children in India hearing stories on a train platform, and Maasai girls going to school instead of being sold into marriage. End materials include a world map with the locations of all 24 schools and resources to help readers get involved. As our children watch disaster footage and hear about human-rights violations, books like Off to Class will encourage them to help to "be the change they wish to see in the world." Rebecca Dash Donsky, New York Public Library