Title: Where Do Clothes Come From?
Author: Chris Butterworth
Illustrator: Lucia Gaggiotti
Publisher: Walker Books
Genre: Children’s picture book, Non-fiction
Book format: Paperback
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Description:  A lively look at materials and technological processes for young children, with stylish illustrations. The sequel to Lunchbox: The Story of Your Food looks at the processes involved in making the clothes we wear. It traces the journey of a bale of cotton from the field where it was harvested to the factories where it is cleaned, carded and combed, dyed, spun into thread, then woven into cloth and made into a pair of jeans. It also shows how wool is turned into a jumper, artificial fibres created for a football kit, a party dress made out of silk, plastic bottles recycled into a fleece, and how latex from rubber trees becomes a pair of wellies. This fascinating book on technological processes succeeds in being young, child-centred and friendly, but also packs in an enormous amount of information.

*Free copy provided by publisher for review…

Review:  Have you ever wondered where you clothes come from, what materials they are made of and how exactly those materials are created?  Well now you can find out with this wonderfully illustrated children’s book.  This book is a little shorter and a touch wider than A4 in size and quite thin at 32 pages.  But inside those pages is a lot of information both written and illustrated in a way that would appeal to many adults as well as children.

Where Do Clothes Come From book page image one
©The Strawberry Post

After the introduction you are given double page spreads of different types of materials.  Each section starts with asking what is your football kit, jeans, wellies, jumper, etc. made of?  There is then an explanation of how that material is made, going all the way back to the raw materials such as jeans being made of cotton plants and jumpers coming from sheep’s wool.   I say many adults might enjoy this as I certainly learned more about the process of creating the rubber for wellies, for example, and although I knew fleece comes from plastic bottles I didn’t know how they turned into threads to be spun into fleece outfits!

The back of the book has a brief section about recycling clothes.  Although this is only brief it also shows the important message of behind recycling and the different ways you can do it, whether it’s giving clothes away or cutting and reshaping them to make something new.

Where Do Clothes Come From book page image two
©The Strawberry Post

What I like about this book is that it is mainly visual. There is some description but the focus is on the pictures and they are not only fun but easy to understand and follow. It’s certainly a book I would have loved to read when I was a child, I was always fascinated by how things are made. The book is aimed at young children and I’m sure many adults will enjoy taking a sneak peek at this book too. Easy to read, fun illustrations and a great way to learn something too.

Do you know where your clothes come from?  What do you think about books that delve into how things are made?  Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂

 

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