Traveling Man

Rumford, J. (2001). Traveling man. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

            Traveling Man, by James Rumford, is the story of Ibn Battuta and his pilgrimage to Mecca. He travels through Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, India, and several other countries starting in 1325. He describes the people he meets and the things he encounters. He is faced with challenges but also rewarded with gifts. This book emphasizes the many rewards for traveling and the memories that come with it. The illustrations are also very pretty and show different cultures and clothes that people typically wore in each country. Ibn finds himself and learns many lessons along the way of his journey.

            This story is very original and gives a different perspective than what we are use to reading about. I like this book because it incorporates so many different countries and the different wonders of them all. I would like to use this story when covering story telling because it is all about his journey of Ibn Battuta. I would use this if students were writing stories of their own to show different writing techniques. I also like the glossary at the end of the book because students can use that to learn about history and the map shows all the countries he visited.