Where Children Sleep

This afternoon, I wanted to share a book of photographs with the children as part of last month's theme of Global Citizenship. The book is called Where Children Sleep, and it is an amazing book for both adults and children. Photojournalists traveled around the world to take pictures of individual children and their bedrooms (or wherever they sleep). Here are some of the images we saw.

Each page also told about the child - their name, age, where they live, where they go to school or work, hobbies, and favorite foods. Some stories were extraordinarily sad - children who live in abject poverty, sleep with their families on a mattress outside, or in orphanages with many other children. Some pictures showed children being raised in unheard of wealth, and described lives of supreme luxury. Some children had to work in order to help their families, and some had multiple nannies taking care of all their needs (and everything in between).

After we looked at many of the pictures, students were challenged to draw their bedrooms. As they drew, they described shelves of books, many stuffed animals, toys, and comfortable beds. I think this was a wonderful lesson in how lucky we are, and how there are so much children in less fortunate circumstances.

Here are just a couple examples: