Infinity and Me

by Kate Hosford, Gabi Swiatkowska (Illustrator)

Overview

When I looked up, I shivered. How many stars were in the sky? A million? A billion? Maybe the number was as big as infinity. I started to feel very, very small. How could I even think about something as big as infinity?

Uma can't help feeling small when she peers up at the night sky. She begins to wonder about infinity. Is infinity a number that grows forever? Is it an endless racetrack? Could infinity be in an ice cream cone? Uma soon finds that the ways to think about this big idea may just be . . . infinite.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761367260
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2012
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	455,006
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Kate Hosford is the author of several picture books, including Infinity and Me which won the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book award and was named an ALA Notable Children's Book. She lives in Brooklyn.

Gabi Swiatkowska likes looking at the moon surrounded by seemingly infinite stars from her home in France. Find more of her books and illustrations at www.tildondesign.com.

Editorial Reviews

Dark-haired Uma sits wide-eyed in her backyard under a black, star-studded sky, torn between the charm of her new red shoes and the overwhelming size of the universe. “How many stars were in the sky? A million? A billion? Maybe the number was as big as infinity.” Friends, teachers, and family give Uma new ways to think about infinity—as an endless succession of ancestors, or as a noodle cut in half and in half again (Swiatkowska draws Uma cutting a python-sized noodle with a knife, demonstrating that things can become infinitely small, too). She struggles with the sheer enormity of the idea: “Actually, my head was starting to hurt from all these thoughts.” It’s not until Uma’s grandmother notices her shoes that Uma can make infinity her own: “y love for her was as big as infinity.” Hosford’s (Big Bouffant) story is as much a look into the interior life of a sensitive girl as it is a meditation on a mathematical concept—a task for which Swiatkowska’s (This Baby) idiosyncratic portraits are perfectly suited. Ages 5–10. Agent: Tracey Adams, Adams Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Emily Van Beek, Folio Literary Management. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"A stellar artistic vision of the infinite power of intergenerational love." —starred, Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Uma's struggle with the meaning of infinity offers readers a playful, gorgeous introduction to the mathematical concept. When little Uma gazes at the vast night sky and wonders how many stars are there, she asks, "How could I even think about something as big as infinity?" When friends, her grandmother, the school cook and the music teacher offer creative ways of describing infinity, Uma ends up feeling rather overwhelmed. She then realizes that her pondering has made her forget about the new red shoes she'd been so excited about right before her stargazing musings began. Worse yet--no one had noticed her fancy new footwear that day! But after school, Grandma tells her "Uma, I meant to tell you this morning--those are the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen!" and in a joyous spread, Uma glories, "…my love for her was as big as infinity." Then Uma and her grandmother go outside to look at the sky, and "[s]nuggled up to Grandma, the sky didn't seem so huge and cold anymore. Now it was more like a sparkly blanket, covering us both." While Hosford's text deftly evokes the child's voice, Swiatkowska's expressive, lush illustrations steal the show, providing infinite opportunities for readers to examine each and every spread. A stellar artistic vision of the infinite power of intergenerational love. (author's note) (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews