World Cultures — five countries from the inside
Japan, Brazil, Morocco, India and Norway seen as ordinary daily life, not postcards: food, school, language, customs and what surprises visitors. Ages 11–13.
Ages 11–13
What's inside
Japan — care in small details
Japan is a country of more than fourteen thousand islands, where dense high-tech cities sit an hour by train from quiet mountain villages. It is one place where an ancient wooden temple and a robot-staffed shop can be on the same street without anyone finding it strange. Japanese culture is not frozen in the past: it is a living mix of long traditions and some of the most inventive design, animation and engineering being made today.
Brazil — a continent of its own
Brazil is the fifth-largest country on Earth and holds a huge range of climates and communities: Amazon river towns, dry sertão farmland, southern cities founded by German and Italian migrants, and Atlantic coastal capitals shaped by African and Indigenous heritage. Portuguese is the shared language, but around 270 Indigenous languages are still spoken alongside it. Whatever you think Brazil is, some other part of Brazil is completely different.
Morocco — two languages, one country
Morocco sits at the northwest corner of Africa, with the Atlantic on one side, the Mediterranean on the other and the snow-capped Atlas mountains running through the middle. It has two official languages: Arabic and Tamazight, the language of the Amazigh people who have lived there for thousands of years and whose alphabet, Tifinagh, appears on road signs and school books. Many Moroccans also speak French and Spanish, so switching languages mid-sentence is completely ordinary.
India — many nations in one
India is the most populous country on Earth and works more like a continent than a single culture: cross a state border and the language, script, food and festivals can all change. Its constitution recognises 22 languages, and banknotes carry 17 of them, printed side by side. It is also a country of enormous contrasts, where a village harvest and a satellite launch can happen the same week.
Norway — outdoors in any weather
Norway is a long, narrow country stretched up the edge of Scandinavia, cut by fjords — deep sea inlets carved by ancient glaciers. Above the Arctic Circle the sun does not set for weeks in summer and does not rise for weeks in winter, which shapes how people sleep, study and celebrate. It is also home to the Sámi, an Indigenous people whose lands cross Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia and who have their own parliament, languages and national day.
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