I think whether this book would qualify as recommended or additional purpose will depend on the purpose you are seeking to fill.  It’s got a lot of information presented in a very readable fashion, rather like a travel diary.  The information isn’t organized terribly well for research purposes, so if it’s strictly an information book you’re looking for, it would probably be an additional purchase.  But if you’d like to use the sports connection to spark some reader’s interest in geography and travel, then I could recommend this (and probably the rest of the series).  The one thing I wished for that could have made this an R* would be to have more photos to help support the text.  One feature I really did like (besides the voice that made it so inviting) was that it included excerpts from the glossary in little blurbs along the way, right on the pages where the words would be needed.  Let’s face it, kids tend to be pretty lazy about actually using the glossaries in the back, but putting the “Words 2 Know” blurbs right on the applicable page would be helpful.