Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?

by Robert E. Wells, Robert E. Wells (Illustrator)

Overview

The blue whale is the biggest creature on Earth. But a hollow Mount Everest could hold billions of whales! And though Mount Everest is enormous, it is pretty small compared to the Earth. This book is an innovative exploration of size and proportion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807536568
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	01/01/1993
Series:	Wells of Knowledge Science Series
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	226,804
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	AD840L (what's this?)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Robert E. Wells is the author and illustrator of many award-winning science books for children, including Can You Count to a Googol? and Why Do Elephants Need the Sun?. He lives with his wife in Washington.

Robert E. Wells is the author and illustrator of many award-winning science books for children, including Can You Count to a Googol? and Why Do Elephants Need the Sun?. He lives with his wife in Washington.

Editorial Reviews

"What How Much is a Million did for big numbers, this picture book does for big sizes, making the inconceivable more imaginable through original, concrete images…Lively ink-and-watercolor illustrations brighten the pages of this accessible concept book. The title and cover will draw a large audience of small children fascinated by big things."—Booklist

"With its bright primary colors; cartoon illustrations; and readable, conversational text, this picture book will find a niche in most collections…Librarians and teachers could use this book to introduce units on size, measuring, or relativity. And it would be useful to demonstrate how to make beginning graphs in a fun, accessible way."—School Library Journal

"This book makes the very big definable, if not comprehensible, a paradox sweet with mystery. Middle-graders will find here a light and easy read for science class."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Amusing color illustrations and a whimsical text show how large items are dwarfed in size when compared to even larger things. Fun and informative."—The Horn Book Guide

From the Publisher

This raffish primer on the meaning of ``big'' delivers a healthy, age-appropriate jolt to common assumptions about proportion and numbers. Beginning with a blue whale's flukes (``the `flipper' parts of the tail, all by themselves bigger than most of Earth's creatures''), Wells projects the relative sizes of Mount Everest (20 giant jars filled with 100 blue whales each), the earth, the un, the Milky Way, right out to the universe itself. Child-friendly watercolors show a bag of 100 planet earths dwarfed by the sun, and a crate of 100 ``sun-sized oranges'' inconsequential atop Antares, ``a red supergiant star.'' Somewhat understandably, Wells's pictures and analogies wither as he tackles the magnitude of galaxies and the universe. To prevent readers from choking on these perceptual mouthfuls, valuable introductory and final notes suggest a relatively concrete scale: for instance, counting to a thousand takes about 12 minutes, counting to a million takes 3 weeks at 10 hours per day, but counting to a billion takes a lifetime. Ages 6-11. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 2-3-With its bright primary colors; cartoon illustrations; and readable, conversational text, this picture book will find a niche in most collections. Not a story as such, it begins on the title page with the question, ``Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?'' and answers it in a series of cumulative examples. Millions of blue whales placed into enormous jars and stacked up don't begin to compare to the colossal size of Mt. Everest, just as even 100 Mt. Everests piled up only make up a whisker on the face of the Earth. Taking this comparison to the outer limits of the imagination, Wells ends up with the biggest thing there is-the universe. Librarians and teachers could use this book to introduce units on size, measuring, or relativity. And it would be useful to demonstrate how to make beginning graphs in a fun, accessible way.-Jan Shephard Ross, Dixie Elementary Magnet School, Lexington, KY

School Library Journal