The Message: The Extraordinary Journey of an Ordinary Text Message

by Michael Emberley, Michael Emberley (Illustrator)

Overview

Follow as a text message travels at near light speed around the world in this illuminating picture book about how our messages get from one phone to another, and connections they create between both people.

Ever wonder how your text message gets from your phone to your friend’s phone? You type it, hit send, and boom—the text appears on your friend’s phone just moments later. But how?!

From your brain to your fingers to your phone, once you hit send, off your message goes on a journey that seems impossibly far: traveling through the air, underground, under oceans, and even through mountains, in seconds. Turns out texts are big on adventure, and this book explains exactly what they do and how. No planes, trains, or automobiles involved, but lots and lots of hair-thin fibers, ocean-length cables, and satellites!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534452909
Publisher:	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Publication date:	10/26/2021
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	NC1130L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 9 Years

About the Author

Michael Emberley is the illustrator of many books for children including Barbara Bottner’s Priscilla Gorilla and Miss Brooks’ Story Nook. He knows a lot about cell phones and lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Michael Emberley is the illustrator of many books for children including Barbara Bottner’s Priscilla Gorilla and Miss Brooks’ Story Nook. He knows a lot about cell phones and lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Editorial Reviews

Emberley uses the example of a mother far away from her young son, texting him to tell him she
loves and misses him, to illustrate how a text message works. [...] Full-page spreads describe how the boy receives his mother’s text and how his brain’s nerves command his fingers to type her a response. In seconds, the message travels as electromagnetic radio waves into the electromagnetic field, moving through cell towers and then underground, through underwater copper-wire cables on its journey to its recipient. The book also has interesting STEM trivia—for instance, that there are five million cell towers in the world, or that per minute in the U.S. about 16 million text messages are sent. In the illustrations, readers are given a big-picture, bird's-eye view of what’s happening above- and belowground simultaneously as Emberley clearly illustrates a technical process in a way that curious readers will find fascinating.— Sharon Rawlins

12/01/2021 - Booklist *STARRED*

What is going on in our brains, on our phones, and in the world when we send or receive a text message? Emberley’s skillfully crafted picture book answers this not-so-simple question with a delightful mix of illustrations, diagrams, and captions with a clear through-line narration that makes the complicated science behind our electronic interactions comprehensible. [...] Readers will never again think the same way about the basic act of sending a text message.

November/December 2021 - Horn Book Magazine *STARRED*

★ 2021-08-18
Emberley tracks a loving mom’s text message to her child on its secondslong global journey.

The narrative begins with receipt by the sleeping child’s “two little ears.” The message glows on the phone’s glass surface, “radiating out as billions of electromagnetic photons.” Cells in the eyes detect the photons and translate their message as an electrical signal, which travels through hollow nerve cells filled with salty fluid, “straight to the brain.” Italicized science facts augment the narration: Cannily, Emberley analogizes humans’ ability to conduct electricity through nerves and salt with machined infrastructure that does so via copper wire. Emberley uses the child’s return text to further examine the brain’s neural interactivity with the phone, then broadens the overview to unpack the complex, fascinating STEM systems that support modern global communications. Emberley deftly illuminates their basics with clear language, labeled illustrations, and ongoing respect for child readers. Signature, loose-lined pictures often show both under- and aboveground activity. Rabbits scamper in tunnels as kids swing on a playground; underground cabling snakes along, unseen. Details deftly enhance child appeal. Cellphone towers are sometimes disguised as trees to blend in with local landscapes. The locations of undersea cable landings are kept “as secret as possible, to prevent sabotage,” and the cables’ “protective armor” can withstand a shark bite. Child and mother both have pale skin and straight, dark hair. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Fascinating in scope, admirable for clarity: a winner. (author’s note, information resources) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews