THE DAY TIME STOPPED

A kid at the beach in Genoa, Italy, starts to eat a popsicle at 5:33 p.m., and “time stop[s].”

In 25 other places around the world, large and small, children and animals go about their lives, with names, activities, places, and times detailed in the text and accompanied by bold, naïve illustrations in bright colors. The hours get earlier on each. As the book travels from place to place, “Tomi [takes] a picture” in London, United Kingdom, at 4:33 p.m., “Biko’s ball [gets] stuck” in Praia, Cape Verde, at 3:33 p.m., and “Aki the penguin hatche[s] in South Georgia” at 2:33 p.m. The book continues in this fashion until it returns to Genoa and the time becomes 5:34 p.m. All locations visited are shown on a concluding map. The logic is sometimes shaky: Why are children in yellow pajamas running out of toothpaste at 11:33 a.m. in New York City? At 5:33 p.m. in Paris, Eric calls his researcher mom, who answers in Concordia Station, Antarctica, at 2:33 a.m. It will take some adult intervention to explain that they are speaking on the phone at the same time. The book provides some information on why there are different time zones but never really satisfactorily explains this. Humans depicted are racially diverse; pleasingly, this diversity is not always linked to location. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Too simplistic for the task.