The adventure of growing up is punctuated with many important rites of passage that often differ depending on cultures and religions. Readers will be fascinated to learn about the diversity of ways to celebrate birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. The text is both straightforward and thorough. Helpful comparative charts are a friendly format for displaying the differences and similarities of rituals and beliefs. Direct quotations from primary sources such as religious texts increase understanding of the ritual or rite of passage under review.