This colorful rhyming story showcases twins Sam and Sophie and their family as they celebrate the foods and activities of the Philippines and Great Britain. After attending a festival of cultures together the twins share their experiences and foods at lunch and invite their school friends to come to their house later and show them more fun things.
The illustrations by the author are simple, brilliantly colorful, and FUN.
Perfectly suited for reading alone or WITH someone of ANY age including ESL, and great for gifting to families, but especially to a school, or your public library!
I requested and received a temporary digital PDF from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley. Thank you!
#MangoAndMarmaladeStoriesBk1 #CulturalDiversity #CulturalFoods #CulturalFestivals #SamandSophieAtTheFestival #NetGalley

This is an adorable story with with a rhythmic writing style that both children and caregivers will love.

Sam and Sophie celebrate their Filipino and British heritage with their family. They get inspired and invite their classmates to celebrate with them.

The illustrations are gorgeous! They're colorful, detailed, and tell a story all their own. For any child who isn't reading yet, they will be able to follow along and create their own story just by using their illustrations.

This would be perfect for a multicultural family who are blending different traditions. Other families who like to learn about different cultures and traditions would also find a lot of joy in this book.

Teachers, schools, and librarians could also use this book to kick-off learning about different cultures. There are so many foods and games mentioned in this book that any educator could use it as a springboard to introduce those games and foods in class when learning about other cultures.

I'm really looking forward to additional stories in this series where they will explore different cultures and traditions.

Didn't love this one. I think the idea behind it and introducing cultures to children is great. But, the execution here is not great. It all felt very clunky and didn't make a lot of sense. Didn't work for me but might work for others.

This was a great story showing kids 2 different cultures. i thought the Illustrations were great.
i would recomend to parents with young children.

I received a free copy of, Sam and Sophie at the Festival: An Incredible Clash of Cultures, by York Arthur Baldwin, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Sam and Sophie are twins. They go to a festival to learn about other cultures and traditions. This is a good read, it shows children they can have more than one culture and traditions.

My kids really enjoy these books, and I’m fine reading them too. I’m not a huge fan of this art style, the story was decent, but felt a little unnecessarily long winded.

Hmmm… Two twin children, one boy and one girl, both go to the local fair one day, which is resplendent with global foods and other celebratory goodies. Heck, they even try Filipino, and then even British, cuisines. And then it turns out they are already half Filipino and half British, so decide their back garden can host a bi-culture festival all in itself, the following weekend, for a few select friends.

Now, having children experience and explore different cultures is great in real life, and it's fine on the page too. But not these pages. For one, they're not experiencing and exploring – they're already living that way, and while they teach their friends (and us) they don't benefit by anything. It was most awkward to work out what was going on with their mixed ethnicity without being told overtly. And as for them being British, according to this the whole nation is almost fully summed up with cream tea and scones, the drink tea, and cricket. The kids' "let's build the festival right here!" attitude is just not realistic, even if they speak about someone we guess is a grandma as if she's a servant.

Finally, the whole thing is in verse, which seems to be a step too far for the author at this stage in his career. It's very clunky, losing a lot of the rhythm, and even just making do with a three-line section once when everything else has had four. The heart is so sincerely in the right place here, but the execution just doesn't match.

I think this story was sweet, the illustrations are very bright and brilliant. The kids are adorable. I think it should be expressed that they are exploring their own cultures, because they have parents from two different cultures. It would make more sense. I do think it's very cute that they invited friends to their own festival. I think the story could've been a bit more in depth. Also, what age range is the target audience? Words like "absurd", "uniqueness", "mystic", etc are larger words and many young children would need several of these words explained and defined to them. Thank you NetGalley for sharing this cute book with me,

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

I read this to my three year old. She like the characters, Sam and Sophie. She liked the pictures. It has lots of rhyming and is a pretty long read for a bedtime story.

Nice look at a family highlighting the different cultures they represent and how they share those cultures with others.

"Sam and Sophie at the Festival" was a rhythmic read that spotlighted children learning different cultures and traditions in a fun way. I thought illustrations were vibrant and very eye-catching. This would make a great addition to any young readers collection of books!

Thank you York Arthur Baldwin, Net Galley and BooksGoSocial for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Sam and Sophie at the Festival: An Incredible Clash of Cultures by York Arthur Baldwin is a delightful and educational read that introduces children to the richness of cultural diversity. Through its engaging narrative and vibrant illustrations, the book provides a meaningful exploration of cultural exchange and the value of celebrating differences.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher York Arthur Baldwin for this advance readers copy in exchange for my honest feedback! This book is perfect book for children to learn about different cultures and areas of our world. The illustrations are beautiful and bright! Perfect book to add to your library at home or at school!