Storyworlds: A Moment in Time; a Perpetual Picture Atlas

A Moment in Time is a collection of paintings showing different places in the world all at the same time. From a couple dancing in Uruguay in the evening to a Komodo dragon hatching in Indonesia early in the morning, this book shows that when it’s night in one place, it can be morning in another.

My favorite part is how the book is put together because you can stretch the book out because it’s like two books stung together. The pictures have captions that tell you where they take place, and there is a world map at the beginning of the book that also explains the 39 time zones around the world. There is also an index in the back that tells you more about the pictures, but most kids will just like looking at the pictures.

I looked at some other similar books (photographs taken around the world on the same day), and I liked the detail of the photographs more than the paintings found in this book. The pictures in A Moment in Time are too similar and don’t capture the uniqueness of the different places in the world the way the photographs do.

It’s a neat idea, but I don’t think I’d go back and look at it much. It might be good in a school library to help kids understand the different time zones.