Migrants

What is a migrant? How is being a migrant different to being an immigrant? Why do people move from the country they live in, and what happens to them when they do have to leave, because of war, poverty or persecution? How do people travel across the world to find new lives – and what reception are they given when they get to where they need or want to go?

This beautiful and useful picture book is a mine of information on the subject of human migration, which is sadly so topical and which many children will have questions about. Altarriba is very thorough on the subject, making sure that he asks the right questions in the right order as he progresses from explaining how humans have always migrated for various reasons, to explaining what might cause this to happen now and reminding children that when people leave their own countries, it’s only for the most dire of reasons.

Though this is a picture book, the information contained in it is pitched at a reasonably high level (for instance, with chapters on European colonisation, xenophobic political parties and a reasonably detailed explanation of how passports and visas work) and so it would best suit children in upper primary school. The design is fairly sophisticated, though, so older readers shouldn’t feel the book to be too babyish for them.