Getting There and Mom and Me are the first two entries in the World Vision Early Reader series. (Grand and I Like to Play are promised.) Both are filled with full-colour images from photographers around the world that illustrate the themes contained in their titles – various modes of transportation and hanging out with ma, respectively.

That we are all essentially the same, regardless of skin colour, nationality, religion, or socio-economic status is the message here – hardly a controversial or unfamiliar one in the realm of kids’ books, but one that can always use a fresh fluffing. Toronto’s Marla Stewart Konrad contributes the books’ very spare text, all of it fairly unintrusive and generic early-reader. (“Being carried is always nice … and so is getting there by boat.”)

With something so well-meaning and virtuous (the royalties from all the books in the series go straight to World Vision), it’s perhaps unfair to ask for pizzazz, but it’s true all the same that the layout for both of these books is dreary and flat, even amateurish.

Still, the images themselves are mostly striking and fun. They won’t teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, but both books have their hearts in the right place, and little ones will get a kick out of all the warm and familiar scenes.