“While you turn the pages of this book, the world doesn’t stop …” A picture book takes readers and listeners on a journey around the world, offering glimpses of things happening at the same moment in time. A boat tossed by a storm in the Baltic Sea, passengers stuck on an elevator in New York City, a soccer ball flying toward a window in Greece, a man resting on a bench in Tokyo, a thief entering a home (perhaps his own, it’s playfully noted) in Pescara, Italy. The location of these and other scenarios isn’t always stated or obvious, but the detailed, stylized illustrations offer many intriguing, and sometimes revealing, things to look at, while each two-page spread is numbered. A world map at the end identifies the locale of each numbered scene, along with the time in that location at the moment (e.g, 9:32 a.m. in Buenos Aires, 9:32 p.m. in Tokyo). The final scene, of a girl on a bed reading, states, “…And a book reaches the end.” (Ages 6–11)

Every time a second crosses the world, millions of big and small things happen -- here, there, and everywhere!

Inspired by the question, "What are they doing right at this moment on the other side of the world?" this book focuses on natural and human events happening all over the world in the same second. Talking about the world and how it's so different in places but also so similar and shared, so incredible and surprising, the books takes us to New York, Chicago, Mexico, Portugal, Angola, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Hungry, Brazil, and South Africa, among others.

So, while you sit turning the pages of this book, things are happening everywhere. Somewhere, a wave is reaching the shore. Elsewhere, an orange falls from a tree. In yet other places, there's a traffic jam, a stuck elevator, and someone's going to sleep. Inevitably, a book is coming to an end as another is beginning. Time is always in a hurry, never, ever stopping, and yet as you focus on these lovely illustrations, which stand as true evocations of place, time begins to slow down and, for moments, it even feels as if time has stopped, and you are transported - out of the flow of time and into the wholeness and purity of a moment. A moment of bird flight; a moment of daydreaming while washing the dishes; a moment of wondering how something felt and what came next.

Isabel Minhós Martins is a Portuguese author and publisher whose words are found in works of poetry, children's books, magazines, comic books, and scripts for animations. She is also the publisher of Planeta Tangerina, a Portuguese publishing company. Several of her books have already been published by the Tate.

Bernardo Carvalho is an illustrator and graphic designer from Lisbon whose work has been honored with multiple awards.