Somewhere in the World Right Now, written and illustrated by Stacey Schuett, shows the reader events taking place around the world at the same time.
“Somewhere, the night wind sighs and murmurs. The moon shines through a window. A little girl is dreaming of tomorrow. But somewhere else, right now, tomorrow is already here. Dawn is breaking. A rooster crows and people are waking up.”
Somewhere in the World Right Now takes the reader through events that are happening at the exact same time all around the world. In Kenya, elephants are sleeping standing up. In Madagascar, a little girl is dreaming of tomorrow. In China, the day has already started – people are going to work and children are heading to school. Each page has a map of the area being discussed as the background. This book does a nice job of illustrating different parts of the world and also introduces the topic of time zones.
Somewhere in the World Right Now is a fun book to read when introducing map concepts to students. It can be used in lessons discussing the way a community, climate and physical surroundings affect the way people live, basic map recognition and reading, and describing different geographic regions. These topics correlate with the Virginia History and Social Science Standards of Learning K.4, 1.6, 3.5, 3.6.
Continents Lesson Plan: This lesson plan helps students learn the names and locations of each continent by creating their own world map.
Where on Earth are you? Lesson Plan: This lesson plan introduces basic map skills and map history to students. It also includes some worksheets and activity ideas.
Time Zone Bulletin Board: This short article includes an idea for creating a bulletin board with clocks made during a time zone lesson.
Literature Mapping: This link provides a month long activity idea for students to plot locations on a world map of different stories as they read them. There is a nice list of suggested books included.
Book: Somewhere in the World Right Now
Author: Stacey Schuett
Illustrator: Stacey Schuett
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: November 1997
Grade Range: K-5