IftheWorldWereaVillage

Smith, D. (2002). //If the world were a village.// Canada: Kids Can Press.

David Smith shrinks the world down to one-hundred people and then uses statistics to make a strong point, we all need each other even though we are all different. Although there are a great number of differences between everyone, there are also similarities that connect everyone.
 * Summary:**

** Grade Level: ** 3-5 ** Reading Level: 5 **  ** Curriculum Connections: **  This book covers various curricular elements including social studies, science, and reading strategies. To make the idea of a world of 6.2 billion people more understandable, Smith suggests that children imagine the population of the world as a village of just 100 people. That's one person representing 62 million people in the real world. Surprising, even shocking statistics follow--for example, many kids in the U. S. take computers for granted, but only seven people in the global village own one. Each double-page, picture-book spread relates a few consciousness-raising facts about such topics as nationalities, food, language, and religion. With the aid of a calculator, even younger kids can do the math; the tricky part is to get children to really understand the ideas. Armstrong's large acrylic paintings, nice complements to the text, look like stained glass windows, with blocks of intense color outlined in thick black lines. This highly informative book will get kids thinking and asking questions, and it can easily be incorporated into a middle-school social studies curriculum. The endnote suggests related activities for home and classroom. --Lauren Peterson
 * Social studies – Political science: This book provides a great base for students to discuss and debate the role that the United States plays in the world.
 * Math – Graphing: Have students graph out the one-hundred people by the different categories that are broken down in the text (for example, 7 people speaking English and 22 speaking Chinese). This will bring the statistics to life for them and give them a visual to put with the words they have heard.
 * Reading strategy – Connections: Text-to-world: The entire book is about how small of a place the world truly is; students should easily be able to make connections to the larger world and discuss these connections as a class.
 * Booklist Review 2002: (from Mackin) **