If you haven't already introduced The Adventures of Bella & Harry to your kids, you SHOULD! My son happened to run across Christmas In New York City!: Adventures of Bella & Harry while at the library a few months ago and we've been hooked ever since!!!

It's a super fun series that takes you on adventures to different cities around the world while following two cute dogs that travel with their family. Since we already incorporate geography into our daily lessons, this was the perfect addition! After we fell in love, I told our librarian how much we loved it and she decided to add more of the series to her collection. I can't help but laugh, as she saved them for me when they arrived. While we were checking out one day, she excitedly ran to the back room and brought me a stash of 10 The Adventures of Bella & Harry books that she set aside just for us. I guess that tells you two things -- we go to the library A LOT and she knew we'd be over the moon about her order, ha! I laughed, Sam jumped up and down, and checked out all 10! Ha! 

As you can see from the picture above, it is a picture book series, but don't let that fool you. Older kids will enjoy it, too! My son typically prefers non-fiction reference books about astronomy to picture books in the children's section -- his favorite is a 250 page research book about the Kennedy Space Center. I suppose he's not your typical 6 year old, ha. The Adventures of Bella & Harry is an exception to the rule with him, though. I'd highly recommend them.

With each book, the dogs (Bella and Harry) explore famous landmarks in the city, try the local cuisine, talk about the culture, and learn words/phrases in that specific language. We've read almost all of them now. When I asked Sam which specific one was his favorite, he excitedly shouted, "ALL OF THEM! ALL OF THEM ARE MY FAVORITE!" Ha!

If you plan to use these as part of your geography lesson, it's a great introduction. When we read Let's Visit Cairo!: Adventures of Bella & Harry, I hadn't really planned on going further in our studies. It was just a random pick since our library had it available. However, after we finished it, the first thing to come to mind was the film, Prince of Egypt. So guess what we did that night after dinner -- had a movie night! He had seen the movie before, but never got into it. After reading the Bella and Harry book, he was glued to the film. He asked questions throughout the movie about Egypt, and it even ended up leading to more lessons related to the Bible story of Moses. One simple book spiraled into a whole unit study -- one that I had not planned, but had a great time doing! 

I'm sure by now, you probably think I'm getting paid to promote this book series, but I'm not. We just love it and want others to hear about it. I had never heard about it until recently and when I tell other homeschool friends about it (or even non-homeschool friends for that matter), not one has heard of it!  Crazy! How has this series been around 5+ years and we're just now hearing about it? Hopefully it's just a case of us living in a little bubble and the rest of you are already enjoying them, ha! If not, go check them out! When you do, leave me a comment. I'd love to know what you think!