The Universe in You: A Microscopic Journey

by Jason Chin

Overview

Jason Chin, winner of the Caldecott Medal for Watercress, dives into the microscopic building blocks of life in this companion to the award-winning Your Place in the Universe.

In Your Place in the Universe, Jason Chin zoomed outward, from our planet, solar system, and galaxy to the outer reaches of the observable universe. Now, Chin reverses course, zooming in past our skin to our cells, molecules, and atoms, all the way down to particles so small we can’t yet even measure them.

Like its companion, The Universe in You is a mind-boggling adventure that makes complex science accessible and enjoyable to readers of any age.

Impeccably researched, wholly engrossing, and with extensive backmatter for additional learning, The Universe in You is another knockout from the award-winning creator of Redwoods, Grand Canyon, and other distinguished works of nonfiction for young readers.

An American Library Association Notable Children's Book
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A Horn Book Fanfare Title
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823450701
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	12/13/2022
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	104,407
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jason Chin is a celebrated author and illustrator of children’s books. He received the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in Andrea Wang's Watercress, a Newbery Honor book and APALA award winner. His book Grand Canyon was awarded a Caldecott Honor, a Sibert Honor, and the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award. His other acclaimed nonfiction titles—Coral Reefs, Redwoods, Gravity, and Island: A Story of the Galapagos—have received numerous starred reviews and other accolades. He is also the illustrator of Stephanie Parsley Ledyard’s debut title Pie Is for Sharing and Miranda Paul’s Water is Water and Nine Months: Before a Baby is Born, the latter a Boston Horn Globe Honor Book. He lives in Vermont with his wife and children.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/26/2022

In this companion to Your Place in the Universe, Chin zooms way, way in, examining progressively smaller materials until reaching the smallest known to humans. An opening page pictures a child with light brown skin who uses a wheelchair, shown near a school group in a desert park. The child sees something that the others miss, kicking off a litany of scientific facts—“The Calliope Hummingbird is the smallest bird in the United States”—then spots even smaller beings: the most diminutive butterfly, and the tiniest bee. Linked comparisons continue into the human body, drilling down to cells (“like tiny water balloons,” reads handily comparative text), molecules, atoms, and elementary particles, all explained clearly and portrayed with dazzling precision. Ending lines weave scientific revelation into a message of profound inspiration, the opening child’s deep, thoughtful gaze accompanying the conceit: “You are made of the same stuff as everything else in the universe... a singular person, who can think and feel and discover... the universe within.” Ample back matter provides background material about elements, cells, DNA, and more. Ages 8–12. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

★ "Giving the biggest impact to these tiniest bits are full-page watercolor-and-gouache illustrations in fine detail, with an illustrator’s note explaining methods for depicting and coloring particles too miniscule for humans to visualize. . . .  stunning visuals. . . ."—Booklist, Starred Review

★ "Explained clearly and portrayed with dazzling precision. Ending lines weave scientific revelation into a message of profound inspiration. . . ."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
 
★ "Whether in the writing or page after page of cascading spreads drawing the eye in, science and poetry create a flawless blend of information, delivered with grace and confidence. . . . This book is a proper revelation, putting the ‘you’ in universe and giving children a way to grasp the infinity of the world and every particle of the planet. Exquisite."—School Library Journal, Starred Review

★ "The art's evocative detailing and dynamic compositions create vivid impressions of realism and movement that will carry viewers down to the point where size and location lose their meanings and then back around to the wide-eyed young observer. Another fantastic voyage from an accomplished author/illustrator, creatively presented."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

★ "Chin cleverly presents a tiered experience that targets at least three levels of audiences. . . . In encouraging inquisitive minds, Chin transforms the impossible into the imaginable."—Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

"Chin's stunning watercolor and gouache illustrations, colorfully detailed and scientifically accurate, employ perspective to draw readers into observations of life and matter within the smallest possible spaces."—The Horn Book
 
"[A] gorgeously rendered nonfiction picture book with a poetic heart. . . . Chin's superb and richly detailed illustrations keep this title elevated. . . . Put this book in the hands of teachers seeking a framework for their biology units."—School Library Connection

"Youngsters will appreciate the speed at which Chin moves through the universe, changing the scale with each page flip, while insets of further facts and details will intrigue aspiring scientists who want to sit with the matter (pun fully intended). Chin’s characteristically detailed art is ideal to capture and delineate the tiny and unseeable. . . . a valuable addition to multiple science units."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

★ 10/01/2022

K-Gr 4—The book opens on Calliope hummingbird, "the smallest bird in the United States. At just 8 centimeters long from beak tip to tail, these tiny birds are small enough to fit" in a child's hand, and the brown-skinned girl is using an all-terrain wheelchair while the rest of the people in the Southwestern desert setting of the United States gather around a guide near a large saguaro cactus. Smaller still, though, is a Western Pygmy Blue butterfly, smaller than a penny, but even that is not as small as the smallest bee. Step by step, centimeter by centimeter, Chin scales down the point of view until readers are staring into the human vellus hair, the bacteria beneath it, skin cells, molecules, protons, and further, to elementary particles, the smallest building blocks known to us at this time. Like a high-speed camera, the narrative then backs away, as these blocks build landscapes, the beasts of the plains, and the universe, arranged just so for every living thing and structure, including the titular "you." There is a moment in the book when it feels as if Chin has, through science alone, reverse-engineered Genesis itself. But whether in the writing or page after page of cascading spreads drawing the eye in, science and poetry create a flawless blend of information, delivered with grace and confidence. Notes on the writing and illustration help children divine fact from guidance and learning aids (such as using color on elements that are essentially colorless); back matter includes a table of elements, selected sources, and a spread called "The Building Blocks of Life." VERDICT This book is a proper revelation, putting the "you" in universe and giving children a way to grasp the infinity of the world and every particle of the planet. Exquisite.—Kimberly Olson Fakih

School Library Journal

★ 2022-06-08
The author of the cosmic Your Place in the Universe (2020) takes a similarly expansive thought journey in the opposite direction.

Once again Chin goes in scale-changing stages. The 8-centimeter-long Calliope hummingbird that lights on the finger of a delighted brown-skinned child who uses a wheelchair seems tiny. It’s a giant, though, next to the Western Pygmy Blue butterfly (smaller than a penny), which towers over a less than 2-millimeter-long bee…which lands next to a vellus hair, less than 30 microns across, on the child’s skin, and so on down to and into cells, past DNA and its constituent molecules to quarks and gluons—which, Chin writes with some understatement, “aren’t like any objects we are familiar with.” But, he concludes, those same elementary particles make up all the physical matter in the universe, from galaxies to hummingbirds to humans. Particularly in the microbial realms but really throughout, the art’s evocative detailing and dynamic compositions create vivid impressions of realism and movement that will carry viewers down to the point where size and location lose their meanings and then back around to the wide-eyed young observer. Retracing part of his route in the backmatter, the author enriches a summary discussion of life’s building blocks with a chart of elementary particles and the periodic table of elements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Another fantastic voyage from an accomplished author/illustrator, creatively presented. (note, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews