Not only does this book encourage young readers and learners to think more globally, it also brings a certain air of refreshing reality. The illustrations are perfect: I loved the style, they’re colorful, fun to peruse, pertinent to the subject matter, and I found them to be completely engaging.

SMITH is a classroom teacher with over 25 years' experience teaching English, Geography, and Social Studies in grade levels from 4 to 12.

I've seen news reports similar to this, but never before in a picture-book and this was a good way to show our girls just how big our world is and how blessed we are to have the things we have (even things we take for granted like clean water and electricity. When the 'gallery' is opened, the group members can take it in turns to be the 'curator' of their data and explain what they show to 'visitors'. The rate of growth of the global village means that there will probably be 250 people in the village by the year 2100.

Except where otherwise noted, images on this site are © the attributed photographer/artist/illustrator or representative agency. Besides the curriculum, Smith has written articles for the New York Times's Education Life section, for The International Educator, for The World Paper, NESA Notes , and Independent School Bulletin. By shrinking the planet down to a village of just 100 people, children will discover how to grow up global and establish their own place in the world village. villagers would be Asian (of that, 20 would be Chinese and 17 would be Indian), 14 would be African, 11 would be European, 9 would be Latin or South American, 5 would be North American, and none of the villagers would be from Australia, Oceania, or Antarctica.Sometimes, I feel like it is easy for us (and students) to visualize the population of Earth to be very similar to us in reference to these elements if it is all that we are surrounded by. What languages would they speak, what foods would they eat, what would they own respectively, what would their various standards of living be?

Reducing the world to a village enables the author to break problems down into manageable statistics. Helps children (and adults) catch a glimpse of what life is like around the world by imagining there are 100 people and then telling how many of them have enough food to eat, where they live, what languages they speak, etc. Thought-provoking and highly effective, this world-in-miniature will open eyes to a wider view of our planet and its human inhabitants.

I'm eager to read the author's If America Were a Village: A Book about the People of the United States! Discuss the merits of different representations and, if appropriate, compare the data with that of your school community. Activity 2 Then I asked the children to complete some data handling sessions where they could apply what they had learnt. It makes ideas about people in the world comprehensible by positing that there are only 100 people in the world.