Thank you, Steven for lending the interesting book. Oh, I am sorry if I mistake the spelling of your name, as one of my host brothers' name is same as yours, but the spelling is Stephen. His grandparents are Irish. Anyway I want to introduce this book to everyone!

I think someone in our class have already bloged about this book before. Do you know the book "If the World Were a Village" by David J. Smith? This book gives readers a lot of interesting facts of the world, but it says "what if we imagined the whole population of the world as a village of just 100 people ?" Have you ever heard? This book is very famous, and so I knew about it, and I wanted to read English one. This one that I have now is especially for children with lots of pictures. I have a lot of fun reading this book, as I was surprised at each fact, and the pictures are pretty. Its topics are Nationalities, Languages, Ages, Religions, Food, Air and water, Schooling and literacy, Money and possessions, Electricity, The village in the past & The village in the future. I will introduce some info. that I am interested in especially from each topic.

Nationalities... Do you remember that we learned 10 countries which have the most biggest population in Scott's class? The same info list is on this book! Conglratulations! There are 2 Japanese people! Guess what, 21 are from China! Hmmm, a lot!
Languages... I am glad to know that I can talk with 16 people, as 9 people speak English, and 7 people speak Espanol. Well, my Espanol is terrible though... Well! I can greet! at least! There are languages that I have even never heard. To say "hello", some people say "Zdrazvoodyeh" or "Selamat pagi" in this village. What languages are they?? Does anyone know? I do not know about them at all! Well, I want to be able to speak Espanol well! I really enjoy learning Espanol, but its class is sometimes too tiring and tough... Oh! I have not done my hmk for Espanol class yet!! ahaaaa... I wonder how I can get it over.
Ages... It seems just perfect. 90 young people live with 10 old people. People can live for 63 years. Now you think "then why Japan is suffering from aging society so much? and why are children in Africa dying even before they become 5 years old?" right? I think this book shows the gap exactly. I am 20 years old now, so I am one of 16 people in this village.
Religions... I had thought that some people might feel that Japanese people are strange because they do not follow any religion, but I was surprised to read that 15 people are non-religious in the village. I have thought that when the world have a discussion or a big debate, Japanese people's opinions are sort of key or could be important because it could have no effects of religious thoughts. If the topics are related to religious thoughts, non-religious people's opinions could be fair. Hmmm... does it make sense? I am confused.
Food... As we have learned, there is a sad fact of gap. I am one of 24 people who can have enough to eat. Guess what, there are 189 chickens in the village where there are just 100 people! that much chickens...
Air and water... I had read terrible facts. 25 people spend hours just to get safe water, and girls and women do that work. 32 peopple breathe unhealthy air because of pollution. I have nothing to say. It is just too sad.
Schooling and literacy... There is 1 teacher for 31 students. 17 cannot read at all, and as we know, girls have less chances of education. I remembered the book "Burned Alive" by Souad. Souad is from a village where girls should always look down as if they count their steps because if someone sees gilrs look at men, it is considered as a big disgrace, and the girls can be killed by their own family because Because! Can you believe it? I cannot! Family does not hope for girls, girls have no education, so no knowledge, so the girls believe that they are as same as animals which they look after. Girls have to get water for their family while their brothers go to school. What do you think about this fact? See? I cannot even belive that this IS a fact.
Money and possessions... The average coat of neccessities in the village is about $5,000 per year, but 20 people have $9,000 for each every year, and 20 people have less than $1 for each a DAY! This was just shocking to me. Charity! We can do charities. Let's go charities!
Electricity... 24 people do not have electricity while 7 people have computers. I have a computer in my house, so I am one of those 7. I hope that everyone can have computers so that everyone can read our blogs!
The village in the past... It shows that it took 3,000 years while the population of the village doubled 5 times with pictures. Each picture shows each year, and the picture of the village is becoming bigger and bigger. In the picture of 1,000B.C.E., there are just 1 person, 1 goat and 1 house, but the picture of 2002 is a big city!
The village in the future... Wow, a lot of people's pictures are on this page. It is so crowded, and I cannot see empty space. It says in 2250, there will be 3,200 people in the village!! Too many!! but it also says that this prediction is quite flexible, as we do not really know what will happen in the future, well we cannot! but it is obvious that right now population is growing that much rapidly, as we learned.

The author, David J. Smith is a teacher, and he suggests some good ways to teach children those facts. for example, we'd better show a world map when we teach the village, so that children can imagine well.

Shelagh Armstrong does the illustrations of this book. I really liked all the pictures of this book. Each one looks pretty and easy to see. Shelagh Armstrong lives in Toronto! Wow, Canada has many talented people!

I want to let many kids be interested in all those issues. I will try my younger brother first, as he is quite good at geography! It helps him understand well. I will return this borrowed book to Steven on Monday, so if you, mates want to have a look, tell me after Rogar's class on Monday.