I recently came across a fascinating title in the children’s section that genuinely changed the way I look at the entire world.  If the World Were a Village, by David J. Smith and Shelagh Armstrong, presents a vast array of demographic statistics in beautifully simplified form, proceeding from the premise of considering the world’s population as if it were a village of 100 people.

Scaling down the almost unimaginable (even for adults) numbers of billions of the Earth’s people to a manageable size, the book presents a imaginary village in which each of its 100 people would represent about 62 million people from the real world.  Beautiful illustrations accompany each page of descriptions of the village’s nationalities, languages, religions, resources, and other interesting statistics.

This innovative way of looking at the world reveals some striking facts along the way.  Of the global village’s 100 people, 61 are from Asia, and only 5 are from the United States or Canada.  Only 24 of the 100 villagers always have enough to eat, while 26 are severely undernourished.  In 1900, only 32 people lived in the village, but by 2050 there could be nearly 200 people.

A short epilogue aimed at parents and other adult readers suggests ways of using the book to illustrate connections among the world’s cultures.  The book’s website features follow-up statistics and exercises, and a related DVD is also available.

If the World Were a Village is a great tool for expanding young readers’ minds about the larger world, and it’s sure to encourage further investigations into geography, social studies, and civics.  It’s certainly eye-opening for readers of any age to consider a village in which 17 out of the 100 of us cannot read at all.