An interactive map of storybook England shows places associated with Alice, Black Beauty, Harry Potter and other famous characters
One of the great pleasures of visiting Britain is that the government hires a lot of people who can help you find your way around instead of doing what we do here in the U.S., which is to tell visitors: “You want information about our country? Pray for a taxi driver who speaks English.” Pause. “If that fails, you could always ask the person who mugs you.”
Many of the helpful Brits work for the tourist boards Visit Britain www.visitbritain.com, Visit Scotland www.visitscotland.com and Visit Wales www.visitwales.com. And some of them came up with a great interactive online map of England that lets children learn about places linked to characters in books like Black Beauty, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the Harry Potter series.
I learned about this delightful storybook map from Ceri Radford, who wrote in her blog about books in the Telegraph: “You can browse by book title, then click to find out more about the work and its location. Kudos to Enjoy England, the marketing arm of Visit Britain, for coming up with the idea.” You can read more about it here blogs.telegraph.co.uk/arts/ceriradford/dec07/.
(c) 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
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