A Million Dots

by Andrew Clements, Mike Reed (Illustrator)

Overview

It's a long way to
a million, right?
Of course it is.
But do you really know
what a million looks like?

If you'd like to see — actually see, right now, with your own eyes — what a million looks like, just open this book.

Be prepared to learn some interesting things along the way.

Like how many shoe boxes it would take to make a stack to Mount Everest.

And be prepared to do some number wondering of your own.

But, most of all, be prepared to be amazed.

Because a million is a LOT of dots.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689858246
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	07/01/2006
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	NC860L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Andrew Clements (1949–2019) was the author of the enormously popular Frindle. More than 10 million copies of his books have been sold, and he was nominated for a multitude of state awards, including a Christopher Award and an Edgar Award. His popular works include About Average, Troublemaker, Extra Credit, Lost and Found, No Talking, Room One, Lunch Money, and more. He was also the author of the Benjamin Pratt & the Keepers of the School series. Find out more at AndrewClements.com.

Editorial Reviews

Did you know it takes 44 pages of this fascinating book to display one million tiny dots? Clements will hook even the most math-averse with mind-boggling facts like "Tie 578,504 shoelaces together, and they would reach from New York to Boston." Oversize images on a dotted background make the concepts all the more graspable. (ages 4 to 8)
The August 2006 issue of Child magazine

Here's a picture book that challenges the ease with which so many of us invoke "millions," as one million tiny dots range across some 19 successive double-page spreads. Fanciful illustrations superimposed over the arrays depict the various milestones along the count-up to a million. A cow in a space helmet jumps happily over the moon, while a tiny highlight indicates the 238,857th dot, representing the distance in miles from the Earth to the moon; a chubby tern appears next to his luggage, its tiny highlighted dot indicating that, "[a]n Arctic tern will fly more than 650,000 miles during its lifetime." Clements has done an admirable job selecting kid-friendly facts to aid in the count-up, effectively mixing the serious and the goofy. The concept begs comparison to David M. Schwartz's How Much Is a Million? (1985), and while this offering does its predecessor one better by delivering all one million goods, it lacks some of the earlier book's sparkle. Its clarity of design and variety of facts presented, however, make it a solid browsing book and an entertaining alternative for fact- and number-obsessed kids. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-12)

Kirkus Reviews